A record year for wildfires was last night blamed on Labour’s environmental policies.

Some 1,017 infernos have ravaged England and Wales this year – already as many as there were in the whole of 2025, the previous worst year.

With temperatures forecast to hit 38C today, campaigners say the Government has ignored warnings that its policies have turned swathes of countryside into tinderboxes.

They say Labour’s rewilding drive, which involves allowing nature to look after itself without human interference, has caused a huge build-up of dry vegetation primed to ignite in heatwaves. 

Gamekeepers and farmers traditionally carried out controlled burning of heather and grasses in the cooler months – encouraging new shoots on which grouse and sheep graze.

Last year, Labour extended rules preventing the burning on 1.6million acres of land. 

It says the move, targeted at peatlands, would improve air quality and protect environmental and public health.

Jonathan Roberts, of the Country Land and Business Association, said: ‘Last year was the worst on record for wildfires, yet ministers responded by making it harder for land managers to carry out the controlled burning necessary to stop wildfires taking hold in the warmer months.

Drivers were ordered to abandon their vehicles and walk down the side of the A31 when the fire took hold on Sunday afternoon. There is no suggestion this fire was as a result of rewilding

‘Government has in effect banned the single-most important method of preventing wildfires, and we are now living with the consequences. Put simply, they must reverse the policy immediately.’

His concerns are echoed by the Countryside Alliance, which said ministers had made a ‘foolish decision’.

‘Moorland communities are facing increasing challenges, the Government having recently more than trebled the area over which the controlled burning of vegetation is effectively banned in our uplands,’ it said. 

‘The Countryside Alliance has repeatedly warned that by ignoring the latest scientific evidence, the Government is significantly increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.’

The warnings came as more than 100 firefighters tackle a major blaze in the New Forest that has raged for four days. 

Numerous other fires around the country have stretched resources, with crews in South Wales yesterday describing ‘carnage’ as they battled seven separate blazes, some of which they believe were set maliciously.

Andy Burnham last night called on shops to stop selling disposable barbecues, which he said were behind many of the blazes. He hinted at a summertime ban in the future.

Lord Botham, a vocal critic of rewilding, urged the Prime Minister to take ‘decisive’ action and place the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which manages the policy, into special measures for ‘reckless incompetence’.

The blaze tore through hundreds of acres of heathland and forced fire chiefs to declare a major incident. There is no suggestion this fire was as a result of rewilding

‘Our wildfire crisis is man-made. It is the result of dreadful policy mistakes repeated year after year,’ the former England cricket captain said.

‘For two decades we have added far too much vegetation to our landscape and are now suffering the inevitable consequences. Unless Andy Burnham acts decisively there will be fatalities.’

Natural England insists heather burning damages carbon-storing peat and it instead promotes mechanical cutting – but critics say while this reduces the so-called fuel load, it leaves ignitable materials behind.

‘The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation. The result is disaster after disaster,’ Lord Botham wrote in a newspaper. 

‘The new winter burning season is due to start on October 1. The Prime Minister has only weeks to reverse last year’s ban and get these preventative winter burns restarted.’

Andrew Gilruth, of the Moorland Association, said: ‘Rewilding sounds like a good idea, unless you end up facing a wall of flames.

‘We simply have far, far too much vegetation covering our landscape and until we reverse rewilding, the wildfires will get worse and worse.’

Defra said its policies were a ‘long-term’ solution.

A spokesman said: ‘Peatland restoration is the most effective, sustainable, and long-term solution for reducing fuel load on degraded peatlands, as wetter, healthy-functioning peatlands hold more water in the landscape for longer and are more resilient to the impacts of wildfire.’

Eurovision bosses are introducing some new rules ahead of next year’s contest.

On Wednesday afternoon, organisers confirmed that new regulations were being put in place from 2027 onwards, which most notably say that a winning country will no longer be permitted to serve as host if it is involved in any kind of “armed conflict”, “sensitive geopolitical situation” or “any other situation [which] materially affects the security, safety or stability of their state or immediate region”.

In the event that a winning country does fall into this category, organisers will “identify an alternative host broadcaster” which will “not be required to stage the event on behalf of another member” as the UK did with Ukraine in 2023.

Meanwhile, Eurovision has said that an alternative host country might be also chosen if the reigning winners are deemed to be unsuitable, either due to them not “abiding by the rules of the ESC”, being “found to have attempted to unfairly influence the results or outcome of the ESC in favour of its own entry”, undermining the “non-political character” of the contest, or being unable to “guarantee the safety, security, integrity, continuity or smooth operational delivery of the event”.

Ariana Grande slipped a cozy picture of herself with her on-again boyfriend Ricky Alvarez into a new Instagram album on Wednesday, brushing off the intensifying clamor of fan concerns about her wellbeing.

She shared the album days after announcing plans to withdraw temporarily from public life once she finishes her current run of concerts on September 1.

Her hiatus statement, which cited ‘endless, ongoing public scrutiny,’ came amid a roiling online outcry over her new music video Petal, in which her figure was so thin that her sternum was distinctly visible.

In her new Instagram post, the 33-year-old projected a cheery disposition as she documented her travels on the road with her Eternal Sunshine Tour.

One photo showed Alvarez, a former backup dancer whom she previously dated in 2015 and 2016, with one of his arms wrapped lovingly around her.

Although their faces were kept out of frame in that photo, she included another snap of her clinging to him in which his face was in the shot but the image was blurred.

The Daily Mail has contacted Grande’s representatives for comment.

One photo showed Alvarez, a former backup dancer whom she previously dated in 2015 and 2016, with one of his arms wrapped lovingly around her

Although their faces were kept out of frame in that photo, she included another snap of her clinging to him in which his face was in the shot but the image was blurred

The gathering public concern for Grande rose to a fever pitch last week after the release of the Petal music video, in which she plays a young aspiring starlet attempting to navigate the rigors of showbiz.

‘Tеll me who’s to blame, is it the people or myself?’ she sings at one point in the number. ‘But this time feels so very different. This is not a cry for help.’

Her protruding bones in the video ignited a firestorm of feverish online speculation about her health, with some commentators comparing her to Karen Carpenter, the 1970s pop star who succumbed to heart failure aged 32 after years of anorexia.

Two days after the Petal video dropped online and went viral, a representative for Grande confirmed she would be ‘taking a step back from visibility after she completes the Eternal Sunshine Tour,’ via People.

A family insider then exclusively informed the Daily Mail that Grande’s intimates had ‘begged’ her to take a ‘break’ from her career. 

The hiatus entailed her departure from a planned West End revival of the classic Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, which would have reunited her with her Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey. 

Nevertheless Grande insisted onstage during a subsequent concert that her respite had been planned ‘a long time ago’ and that ‘boundaries need to be set.’

The Dangerous Woman singer poured further fuel on the conjecture by liking a post by psychotherapist podcaster Terri Cole about improving one’s health. 

Her hiatus announcement came amid a roiling online outcry over her new music video Petal, in which her figure was so thin that her sternum was distinctly visible 

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In her new Instagram post, the 33-year-old projected a cheery disposition as she documented her travels on the road with her Eternal Sunshine Tour

‘Unfortunately,’ said Cole in the upload: ‘I can confirm that not everyone will like the healthier version of you. That’s OK. Get healthier, anyway!’ 

Grande teased fans about her renewed romance with Alvarez during a concert this July by changing a line in her breakup single Thank U, Next.

The song originally contained the lyric: ‘Wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh,’ but Grande amended the second half to: ‘We always find our way back.’

She laid the Easter egg shortly after news broke that her controversial romance with her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater had collapsed.

Their relationship had begun in 2023 as an on-set affair during the shoot of their two-part film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. 

They were plunged into scandal on account of the fact Slater was married to his now ex-wife Lilly Jay, who shares a three-year-old son with him.

She made the disclosure shortly after news broke that her controversial romance with her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater had collapsed

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Grande, heaped with opprobrium, retorted by releasing a single called The Boy Is Mine that was widely regarded as being about Slater.

Sources told the Daily Mail that the song was a ‘slap in the face’ to Jay, who was claimed to believe Grande was ‘rubbing it in’ that she ‘stole him’ from her.

In the early part of June, the Daily Mail confirmed that Grande and Slater had amicably broken up after a relationship of nearly three years.

Grande’s first runaround with Alvarez came shortly before she plunged into her two-year relationship with rapper Mac Miller, whom she broke up with a matter of months before he died of an overdose at the age of 26.

She was then briefly engaged to Saturday Night Live lothario Pete Davidson and married for nearly two years to luxury real estate agent Dalton Gomez, whom she separated from months before her affair with Slater went public. 

Aren’t we supposed to be the Land Of Health And Safety, banning everything from cheese-rolling contests to Remembrance Parades because authorities say it just isn’t safe to hold them?

Yet the Government has deliberately blessed the arrival on our roads and streets of two extraordinarily dangerous menaces, e-scooters and e-bikes. Where are Health And Safety when you really need them?

There is hardly a town or city that has not heard the rush and whine of these machines, or seen the changes they bring.

This week the BBC reported that three trauma centres – in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield – say they have treated 477 under-16s for e-scooter injuries since 2019, with the number of cases per year rising from fewer than ten in 2019 to nearly 150 in 2024. Detective Constable Steve Pennington, from Greater Manchester Police, warned e-scooters ‘are not harmless toys and could lead to horrific consequences when used by inexperienced riders’.

The official answer to this is that the privately-owned scooters so often involved in these accidents remain illegal. Technically you cannot ride them on public roads. But any road or pavement user knows that this law has ceased to be enforced in any systematic way.

They are everywhere. And one main reason for this is that the Government has undermined its own law. It has licensed the use of hired scooters in more than 50 English cities, including London and my home town of Oxford.

Recently it added schemes in Leeds, Brighton and Hove and Plymouth, plus Cornwall.

These exemptions are supposed to be experiments, though they began in 2020, under the pretext of Covid, and there is no sign of them coming to an end or any clear indication of what would have to happen for them to be deemed a failure.

If the Government had been actually trying to make the law look ridiculous, it could not have thought of a better way. Oxford is full of these devices, swerving and bumping about, zooming through red lights, menacing pedestrians and cyclists and making the roads more chaotic for drivers.

They have more or less taken us into the Third World. They lie about in ugly orange heaps near historic monuments or are parked in equally ugly official reservations provided for them by the local authority. They are, of course, frequently just left where their riders finished with them.

Special sites for them are marked out on the pavement. If they are legal, how can anyone take the ban on privately-owned scooters seriously?

A survey of 29 police forces found that 5,544 illegal e-scooters were seized and taken off the streets between 2023 and late 2025. That isn’t very many. From what I have seen, this must mean that tens of thousands go unmolested.

As for the legal ones, they have greatly diminished the quality of life. I have myself been walloped (fortunately quite mildly) by one of them in Oxford’s majestic High Street. At the time I was helping a pedestrian who had tripped and fallen.

The most amazing thing was the rider’s total lack of remorse, embarrassment or even interest in what she had done. I can only assume she was medicated in some way. I have never seen the police stop people breaking clear rules for hired scooters, such as the one saying only one person should ride them at a time.

I have myself been walloped (fortunately mildly) by an e-scooter in Oxford’s majestic High Street. At the time I was helping a pedestrian who had tripped and fallen, writes Peter Hitchens

This happens so often that perhaps those involved think it must be legal and I can hardly blame them. The police, even when present, are plainly uninterested.

I can find no specific figures for the numbers stopped or fined for this blatant, frequent offence. This is often a problem with revealing what is going on with e-scooters or their more menacing cousins, e-bikes. Central records are hard to find. Enforcement of rules against harder-to-spot misdeeds, such as riding while drunk or on drugs, or riding underage or without any sort of licences must be weaker still.

Everyone in the real world knows that speed limiters on e-scooters and e-bikes, supposedly keeping them below 16mph, are a sick joke. Many of these devices can do 40mph, often more, and can be seen tearing round the streets – doing so with impunity. For, as muggers, phone-snatchers and other criminals have quickly discovered, they are the ideal vehicles for crime. They have no number plates and cannot be traced. They have the freedom of the pavements, because nobody will prevent them being there. Who can catch them?

Anyone with two ounces of imagination could surely have seen the likely consequences of allowing these ‘experiments’ in a country where the police are largely absent from the streets.

We work ourselves into a national frenzy over the possible menace of Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it will end our civilisation. It is hard to tell. But e-scooters and e-bikes are a real problem here and now. They take the solid form of hard, fast hunks of metal hurtling about in our midst.

The actual arrival in our cities of powerful, cheap, lightweight, easily-recharged electric motor vehicles has stimulated almost no thought at all – even though it is one of the most significant technological changes since the invention of the motor car.

Anyone who brings up the subject, or suggests it may matter, is almost always met with empty-headed catcalls on anti-social media of: ‘Haven’t you anything more important to worry about?’

The licensing of them has barely been debated in Parliament.

E-bikes were permitted on roads and cycle tracks through an EU regulation confirmed without debate. E-scooters were semi-legalised through a fishy procedure called the ‘negative process’ by which the new rules would go through (in a few short days) as long as there was no substantial opposition. And there wasn’t.

Back in July 2020, a little-known body called the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked: ‘Is it a pilot scheme to test the viability of a controversial vehicle on British roads? Is it a means to rapidly expand transport capacity in cities all over the country during the Coronavirus pandemic? And are those two objectives compatible?’

It said MPs and Lords might wish to ask the transport ministry for more evidence to support its case for scaling up the number of trial schemes. It wondered if there was enough data on safety, nuisance and likely costs to local authorities to justify this expansion. It sought clarity on the actual targets and objectives of these trials.

It also said that similar schemes in other countries had been ‘very divisive’, which is one way of describing the fury against them in cities such as Paris.

I see no sign that anybody listened. Is there some strong, rich lobby pushing the other way? We need a proper national debate and proper Parliamentary scrutiny.

I have searched for years for any sign that anybody in government is thinking seriously about the problem. Will it be the usual thing, that we must wait until a terrible tragedy has taken place, perhaps captured by cameras in all its grisly pain and misery, before anything is done?

Kano the bullbreed was found with visibly protruding ribs and crawling with fleas

A man has been banned from keeping animals for fifteen years after RSPCA officers discovered an emaciated dog at a Rochdale address.

Paul Dawson, 37, of Brownside Road in Burnley, was handed the ban at Tameside Magistrates’ Court on July 31 after pleading guilty to three offences of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

His dog, a bullbreed named Kano, was discovered by RSPCA inspectors at an address linked to Dawson on Alice Street in Rochdale after members of the public ‘expressed concern’ that the dog had been left unattended in the property.

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Inspector Beth Fazackerley and rescue officer Francesca Iraci saw Kano through the keyhole ‘looking very skinny’ on August 6 last year, the charity said.

Ms Fazackerley pushed some wet dog food through the letter box, which the dog ate. Calls for Dawson to come to the door got no response.

A warrant was obtained and they returned later that evening with a police officer who gained entry to the property, at which point Kano ‘walked around five metres and then slumped to the ground’.

Ms Fazackerley detailed to the court how she witnessed Kano covered in ‘large clumps’ of fleas and observed him scratching himself to gain some comfort.

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“His ribs, hip bones, spine and other bones were easily visible. I noticed two wounds with scabs above his left shoulder and the other on his right elbow.”

His nails were untrimmed, his fur and skin were said to ‘appear dirty’ with ‘brown crust’ visible in ‘multiple places’ on his body with fur loss around his headquarters.

Photos from the property show a filthy mattress and rubbish covering the floor, with belongings and faeces ‘piled high’.

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Kano was rushed to for urgent treatment and the vet’s verdict was that he was suffering with hunger and severe weight loss.

“He was very hungry when food was offered. Kano was suffering for a minimum of three weeks, but likely longer.

“No preventative treatment was provided for flea infestation. Fleas cause irritating itchy bites and if large amounts of fleas feed on the animal they can cause fatal blood loss. In extreme cases flea infestation can cause anaemia which happened in this case.”

“The amount of rubbish and objects in the rooms and corridor would make it difficult for the dogs to move around. In my professional opinion dogs were being kept in unsuitable, unsanitary conditions and were suffering.”

The judge said it was “the most serious case of animal cruelty I have ever dealt with.” In mitigation, his lawyers said he showed remorse and offered a guilty plea, and that he was suffering from a bereavement.

After pleading guilty to failing to three counts of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal – by failing to provide a suitable diet, adequate veterinary care and a suitable living environment – Dawson was handed a 22-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months, and was banned from keeping animals for 15 years.

He was also ordered to complete 18 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days, 80 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £400 costs.

Inspector Fazackerley said: “Providing an appropriate diet, veterinary care and environment is a fundamental responsibility for any pet owner.

“In this case it was clear Kano’s basic needs were not being met, and he was suffering for some period of time. We are grateful to the members of the public that reported him to us, so we could rescue him before his condition deteriorated further.

“If you can no longer care for your pets, it’s vital that you make arrangements to ensure their welfare. For any pet owners struggling, there’s cost of living advice on the RSPCA’s website.”

An Alaskan community is split on a plan to create a gold mine in the middle of a national park amid environmental concerns.

The federal government granted Alaska Native-owned Cook Inlet Region Inc. the rights to Johnson Tract, a nearly 21,000-acre property surrounded by Lake Clark National Park, in the 1970s as part of a land exchange agreement. Mining company Contango Silver & Gold now has a lease agreement with Cook Inlet Region and plans to create a mine on the mineral-rich Johnson Tract.

While opponents of the project have voiced concerns over the potential effects on beluga whales and brown bears in the region, supporters say the environmental impacts will be minimal, and it would be an economic boost for local tribes.

Contango plans to ship ore mined at Johnson Tract to an existing mill facility, instead of processing the materials there. This would lessen the company’s environmental footprint in the area, but according to The Wall Street Journal, local business owners worry transporting ore through the park will scare off the brown bears that visitors come to see.

“Over many, many years, they started bringing their cubs into the yard, and then they started nursing in front of us,” Joanne Edney-Coray, who runs the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge with her husband, told the publication. “It can be ruined in an instant with teams of people on mining trucks.”

Environmental groups and the Chickaloon tribal council filed a lawsuit last year against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that it violated the Clean Water Act by granting a permit for the Johnson Tract project.

The Army Corps did not ensure endangered Cook Inlet belugas are protected from water and noise pollution or thoroughly evaluate the project’s potential to cause acid mine drainage and leach contaminants into the nearby Johnson River, the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, alleged in a May 2025 press release.

When The Independent reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers, it said it “does not comment on matters in litigation,” and referred to the Justice Department.

Contango CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse argued that his company is “not ruining a park.”

“We’re going to do everything in a way that is really minimizing any of the impacts,” he told the Journal.

The Journal noted that Contango is performing a baseline wildlife survey, which includes monitoring the belugas to assess where they swim.

Greg Encelewski, the president of the local Ninilchik Traditional Council, also pointed out the potential economic benefits of the mining project.

“Our tribes are trying to become self-sufficient, and without some type of economic engine we’re not going to,” he told the Journal.

The Independent has reached out to Contango, Cook Inlet Region and the Justice Department for comment.

Here are some warning signs to look out for.

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The dazzling solar eclipse was seen by thousands of skygazers across the UK today – hopefully most wearing specialist glasses.

Eye health experts have warned there is a risk for those who stared directly at the eclipse. Earlier this evening, the Moon passed directly between the Earth and the Sun, blocking the Sun’s face. Although it was a partial eclipse, the experts say there is a real risk to eye health for those who tried to watch with their own eyes.

Nkosi Yearwood, optometrist and The College of Optometrists council member for Wales said: “People often forget that the sun gives out a lot more light than just visible light. There are also ultraviolet rays, infrared rays, and it’s this whole spectrum that is harmful to our eyes.

“Because the sun starts dimming in the eclipse, many people think that it’s safe to look at, but actually even if it’s a 90% coverage, you’ve still got 10% of the sun that you’re staring at, and that’s still a lot of energy.”

How can looking directly at the solar eclipse without certified filters impact your eyes?

“If you look directly at it, it can cause damage to the back of the eye and can cause some retinopathy,” Patrick Laidlaw, an optometrist based at Optegra Eye Clinic Sheffield said.

“If you look at it for too long you could even develop a central bit of field loss.”

This is because looking directly at a solar eclipse can affect the macula.

“There’s a point at the back of the eye called the macula, which is where you get your central vision from, and it’s highly populated with photoreceptors. Intense light can cause toxicity and can essentially burn the back of the eye,” explains Laidlaw.

Yearwood notes that history suggests that this damage can occur even when you look at it for short period of time.

“In the days following the last eclipse in the Nineties, around 70 people across the UK presented to eye departments with some level of solar retinopathy, and about 40% of these people looked at it for less than a minute,” says Yearwood.

What red flag eye symptoms should we look out for?

People tend to get delayed symptoms.

“It can take a few hours or even couple of days before you start feeling the symptoms,” says Yearwood.

He explains that many people don’t notice it straight away because there usually isn’t any pain associated with it.

“The retina doesn’t have any pain receptors, so you can do this damage and not know about it,” says Yearwood.

However, there are other signs to look out for that can range from mild to drastic.

“The main things to look out for is any blurring in vision, distortion, a dark spot or a change in your colour vision,” says Yearwood.

“If you experience any of these symptoms or just feel like things aren’t quite right, seek advice from an optometrist at your local opticians straight away.”

Laidlaw adds: “I would also look out for any severe light sensitivity or any reduction in vision.”

What do optometrists look for?

“We look for any changes to the macular region, because that’s the part of your eye which focuses on the very fine detail. Whenever you’re looking at something, your macula is focused on it, and we tend to see changes to the retinal cells,” says Yearwood. “It generally shows up as a yellowish spot.”

Can this damage be treated or reversed?

There is no treatment for it, but it can heal itself.

“Similar to sunburn, it does in most cases does heal itself,” says Yearwood.

“The length of time to heal and how high the chance of healing depends on how long you look at the eclipse for.

“So, if you did end up staring at it for too long, you do risk permanent vision damage. If you are worried, go to your local opticians and let them assess you.”

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You can’t please everyone…

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Hundreds of thousands of people across the UK stepped outside on Wednesday night to watch the largest partial eclipse in 27 years.

Many gathered on hills and other locations to watch the sun largely disappear behind the moon, with some areas seeing more than a 90 per cent covering.

Social media was flooded with requests from people trying to get their hands on special viewing equipment to watch the celestial phenomenon.

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However, not everyone seemed quite as enthusiastic.

Amongst those who took to X, formerly Twitter, was Tony Blackburn OBE.

He wrote: “I’m in North Devon and the eclipse was a disappointment, hardly went dark, nothing like the last one which was special, mind you the news channels still going on about how great it was. Not in the UK it wasn’t.”

And it seems he was not the only one.

@lynzr33: “I’ve been ill in bed since Saturday so was looking forward to the eclipse & what an absolute letdown it was. If I didn’t know there was one I’d never had noticed such was the lack of difference in the light. I expected more.