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Amazon fuelling rise of illegal e-bikes by selling Chinese kits that turn regular bicycles into souped-up speed machines

Published

51 minutes ago

20 September 2026

The second-hand bicycle that the Mail transformed into an illegal e-bike using a Chinese conversion kit bought on Amazon

Amazon is fuelling the illegal e-bikes menace by selling Chinese conversion kits for under £500 that turn regular bicycles into souped-up machines.

The online retailer is offering upgrades that allow riders to travel at several times the speed limit for an e-bike, The Mail on Sunday’s investigation has found.

Our reporter transformed a second-hand pedal bike into an illegal e-bike after buying a conversion kit from Amazon for under £500.

These kits are not illegal to sell in Britain. But there are growing calls for a ban on sales amid a rise in accidents and muggings involving rogue e-bike riders.

Under UK law, e-bikes must have electric motors limited to a maximum power output of 250 watts and must stop providing power at 15.5mph.

Anything above that is classified as a moped or motorbike and must be registered, taxed and insured.

However, many e-bikes are being modified to travel at frightening speeds.

This can be done by cranking up previously compliant electric bikes or converting pedal bikes into motorised ones.

The second-hand bicycle that the Mail transformed into an illegal e-bike using a Chinese conversion kit bought on Amazon

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The underside of the motor shows it has a power of 500 watts, twice the legal limit for e-bikes

The MoS found it was astonishingly easy to find kits online that would boost bikes well beyond the legal limit.

Amazon offers a range of conversion kits, including some with 2,000 watt motors capable of speeds of up to 40mph.

We ordered a package containing a 500-watt Chinese-made motor, a battery and other parts for just under £500. The kit arrived in days. We then paid a bike shop in South-east London £200 to install it on a second-hand pedal bike.

The motor helps create speeds of more than 25mph but we could easily have bought one far more powerful. We found a specialist retailer selling a 5,000 watt e-bike conversion kit for £1,327.

A simple Google search also revealed websites selling ‘speed derestriction dongles’ for up to £299.

One product claimed it would ‘suppress the speed limiter’ so that riders could travel at ‘unlimited speed’.

Police forces nationwide have been grappling with a surge in illegal e-bikes. Seizures rose 83 per cent, from 3,858 to 7,049, in the 12 months to May 19.

They have been described by MPs as the ‘perfect accessory to phone theft, mugging and drug dealing’, with gangs increasingly using them to target victims.

The Metropolitan Police arrested 187 thieves and seized 157 e-bikes, mopeds and other vehicles in an operation targeting e-bike muggers this year.

The machines have also caused a spate of accidents, including the death of grandmother Gloria Stephenson, 86, who was struck and killed by a teenager riding an illegal e-bike on a zebra crossing in Sunderland last year.

Gloria Stephenson, 86, was struck and killed by a teenager riding an illegal e-bike on a zebra crossing in Sunderland last year

This was the moment teenage e-bike rider Billy Stokoe mowed down and killed grandmother Gloria Stephenson on a zebra crossing in an incident that shocked the nation

The £4,000 type of bike in the crash, which is still being sold online, had a claimed top speed of 47mph and could accelerate from zero to 30mph in 2.7 seconds.

Safety campaigners welcome police action but argue the problem should be tackled at source.

Powerful conversion kits can be sold because the bikes they are fitted to can be used legally if properly registered, taxed and insured by the owner.

Retailers can also sell high-speed e-bikes if they specify that they are for use on private land only.

But these rules are routinely flouted. Labour MP Julie Minns, who has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to ban the sale of illegal e-bikes and conversion kits, said The Mail on Sunday’s investigation was ‘deeply alarming’.

She added: ‘It is completely unacceptable that major online platforms like Amazon make it so easy to buy 500W or 2,000W motors to convert an ordinary bicycle into a machine capable of car-like speeds.

‘While recent police enforcement powers are a welcome step forward, seizing bikes on the street is tackling the symptom rather than the cause. The Government must go further.

‘I am continuing to press ministers to take decisive action to ban the sale and supply of high-powered conversion kits and speed-derestricting devices by online marketplaces once and for all.’

Margaret Winchcomb, of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said it was ‘unsustainable’ to leave police to seize ‘what they can on the streets’.

Labour MP Fabian Hamilton, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking, said the availability of dangerous e-bikes and conversion kits online ‘must not continue’.

An Amazon spokesman said it was ‘removing the products’ highlighted by The Mail on Sunday.

He added: ‘We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws and regulations and we monitor for product safety concerns.

‘We go further by requiring sellers of e-mobility products to provide documented testing certification carried out by an accredited lab.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘E-bikes that have been modified to be faster and more powerful than the rules allow are motorbikes, and unless they have been registered, taxed and insured, they are illegal and have no place on our roads.

‘We have given police stronger powers to seize vehicles without needing to issue a warning and we are cracking down on unsafe products sold online.’

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A Nazi Officer Saved My Mother’s Life. So, I Tracked Down His Daughter.

Published

4 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

A Nazi Officer Saved My Mother’s Life. So, I Tracked Down His Daughter.

“I’m here to find an SS officer,” I told the uniformed guard outside the Berlin Archives. “He saved my mother,” I added in German.

The guard handed me a visitor pass and a white plastic bag emblazoned with the German coat of arms – a black eagle with red talons – and directed me to a red brick building across a parade ground where thousands of SS officers once lined up.

I registered inside. I explained to a librarian that I knew the officer was of Ukrainian background, but I did not know his name. I had already contacted archives in Poland, the U.S. and other parts of Germany in hopes of tracking down this man.

Most of what I knew about the SS officer came from my grandmother, who, for much of her life, kept what happened to her during World War II hidden.

I first asked about the blue-green numbers on her arm when I was five, while watching her chop beets and onions for a soup.

“It’s our phone number,” she said. “So I won’t forget it.”

My grandmother continued to deflect my questions until she was in her 80s, when she finally let me interview her. But the gaps in her story alarmed me almost as much as her graphic descriptions, and after she died, I set out to fill them. To unravel her history. To understand how her experiences shaped her and my mother. To learn how a history I didn’t live ended up shaping me.

My grandmother first encountered the SS officer in a prison in Radom in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Polish Blue Police had arrested my grandparents at a factory my grandfather managed after they’d spent four years ducking and hiding from the Nazis using false names that hid their Jewish identities.

One policeman ordered my grandmother to leave my mother behind. She picked up the screaming toddler, grabbed a white teddy bear, burrowed it into my mother’s cheek, and left her in her bed.

A policeman snapped cuffs on my grandparents’ wrists and led them outside.

“Shoot us! Please shoot us!” My grandmother pleaded. She knew the Germans could kill her slowly as they attempted to learn how she’d obtained her fake papers.

The policemen ignored her and bundled her and my grandfather into a car.

Courtesy of Karen Kirsten

The author’s grandparents at their wedding in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938.

Weeks later, on a frigid January morning, her prison cell door swung open, and my grandmother saw the SS officer: eyes set low below a bulbous forehead, stubby fingers taut as cigars. He locked shackles around her ankles, snapped cuffs on her wrists, and led her from the cell to interrogate her at Gestapo headquarters a mile away.

“He was a terrible fellow who was beating everyone,” my grandmother told me decades later. “A very famous, very cruel man, this fellow … Ach! How he beat women!”

But she said, “he was like an angel with us.”

This unsettled me. When she told me this, I knew nothing about the interrogation procedures at Gestapo headquarters or the torture tactics prisoners who survived later recounted, particularly those they suspected of having connections to the resistance, like my grandfather.

Because of the floggings, starvation, slave labour and dehumanising treatment my grandmother endured in that prison and in Auschwitz and Ravensbrück, I doubt she was able to communicate the full picture of what they lived through. Maybe there was an even more horrific experience she needed to protect herself from reliving. Maybe the effects of whatever happened in that interrogation room were so devastating that she’d blocked the officer’s name from ever entering her mind again. She did not remember his name, but she would never forget him.

The plot to save my mother was my grandmother’s idea. Using sympathetic Polish guards as messengers, she smuggled coded suggestions to my grandfather’s cell on pieces of paper rolled to the size of a pea and stuffed into tiny cubes of bread. If her scheme did not go according to plan, she figured at the very least she would get to see my grandfather one last time before they shot her.

Two months after their arrests, in the basement of Gestapo headquarters, a guard pushed my grandmother to the floor and locked her cuffs to an overhead pipe, next to my grandfather.

Eventually, someone led them into a room more office-like than the interrogation cells. A light bulb hummed and flickered. The SS officer was already there. My grandfather sized up his boomerang eyebrows and his woolen uniform that, in the damp, smelled of horse. He scanned the room for whips, butcher hooks, and pokers.

"This photo of my mother was confiscated in Radom prison, returned and then smuggled through four concentration camps," the author writes. "It was taken in late 1943 before my grandparents were arrested." — “This photo of my mother was confiscated in Radom prison, returned and then smuggled through four concentration camps,” the author writes. “It was taken in late 1943 before my grandparents were arrested.”

My grandmother sat by a desk beside my grandfather and rested her handcuffs on her thighs. She pulled awkwardly at her dress, which she’d been wearing since her arrest. She slid her fingers to the top of her stocking and fiddled and twisted. She unraveled the fabric wrapped around her upper leg and yanked hard. She pulled the corset off and kneaded slits in the fabric. Jewellery tumbled out.

My grandmother had sewn her dead mother’s jewels into her clothing. Now she tilted the stones. They sparkled. She lowered gem-embellished earrings onto the desk. The diamonds in the rings were enormous.

Although my grandmother did not know the officer had taken bribes before, she hoped her mother’s jewels would seduce him.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We want you to promise to save our child,” she told him.

My grandmother had clung to the possibility that someone had heard my young mother screaming, but she did not know if the child was alive. She had no idea that someone had indeed found her and, at great risk, watched over this Jewish child. However, to this day, no one knows who.

The SS officer drove 29 miles, found my mother, and delivered her to a convent. She remained hidden there for the rest of the war and was cared for by the nuns.

"This is my mother, Joasia, being held by Sister Stefania Sydry just after the SS officer delivered her to the convent in March 1944," the author writes. — “This is my mother, Joasia, being held by Sister Stefania Sydry just after the SS officer delivered her to the convent in March 1944,” the author writes.

The officer’s superior ordered my grandparents to be sent to a nearby concentration camp instead of executing them. Later, they were forced – along with 3,300 others – to march 62 miles, and then they were loaded onto cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, where my grandmother was tattooed for slave labour. As the Soviets approached, the Germans transported my grandmother to Ravensbrück, where, from a sub-camp, she staggered, dizzy with hunger in -22 degrees Fahrenheit in her Auschwitz-issued wooden clogs with other “coat-hanger” women, as they called themselves, to an armaments factory to assemble bullets.

Shortly before the war ended, Sweden’s Count Folk-Bernadotte made a deal with Heinrich Himmler, and the Red Cross evacuated my then 30-year-old grandmother. She arrived in Sweden on a stretcher. She weighed 59 pounds – unable to recall her name. My grandfather was sent from Auschwitz to Natzweiler, and then Dachau, where American soldiers eventually liberated him.

I was obsessed with finding the “good” Nazi who had taken my grandmother’s bribe. I could not stop thinking about how a man who embraced the ideology of exterminating people like my mother was also capable of choosing mercy. How he saved her. How without him, I would not exist. His one deed propagated my need to understand the choices victims and perpetrators make in violent times. It shaped everything from how I understand history to how I see the world I live in, to how I understand myself.

Before visiting Berlin, I’d lurked in online forums, throwing names of officers at Radom prison at war buffs and collectors of Nazi memorabilia, trying to match details with what my grandmother had told me. I’d pestered every historian I could contact. I felt an irrational responsibility to thank the officer’s family. I wondered how a man who whipped and disfigured women – and pledged loyalty to a group that did so many unthinkable things – would treat his own children. I thought that if they knew about this kind act, it might help them bear a past they did not want as their legacy.

A woman I met in Berlin connected me to an organisation that pairs descendants of Nazi perpetrators with survivors and their families – people on opposite sides of a shared history. One descendant combed German libraries and concentration camp archives for me. When I asked her why she was helping me, she told me she’d discovered later in life that her abusive father was a concentration camp commander. She said helping people broken by atrocities like the ones her father committed helped her grapple with a history she was born into. A history she did not choose.

After leaving Berlin without the officer’s name, I arrived at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., with low expectations. A researcher flipped through a file as thick as a book: prisoner ledgers, survivor lists, concentration camp inmate questionnaires, repatriation requests and denials. On the very last page of my grandfather’s file, I saw it: two SS lightning bolts typed in blue carbon ink, the Radom Gestapo unit that interrogated him, and a name. Shock arced through my stomach. It matched the name of a Ukrainian officer a historian had emailed me.

It didn’t surprise me at all that my grandfather had stored the Nazi’s name in his head through four concentration camps and a death march and then revealed it to the Allies when they interviewed him. He had been a lawyer before the war, and at night from his bunk he’d urged fellow prisoners to recite SS officers’ names and their crimes so one day they could be tried. After his liberation, the U.S. military established the Dachau Trials and hired him to help prosecute high-ranking Nazis. However, after emigrating, like many refugees who reinvent themselves to match the expectations of new countries – and to suppress the horrors they escaped – he never talked about his past, much less the officer’s name.

A photo of the author's grandfather when he was working with the U.S. Army at Dachau in 1946. — A photo of the author’s grandfather when he was working with the U.S. Army at Dachau in 1946.

I found the SS officer’s family tree on a genealogy website. His daughter was about the same age as my 74-year-old mother. Maybe when the SS officer handed her to the Mother Superior at the convent, he was thinking about his own little girl he’d left behind.

“He said, ‘Pray to God that the war will be finished and we can all go home soon,’” my grandmother told me. “Over and over, he said it.”

I mailed a letter to his daughter:

I hope this letter does not come as too much of a shock for you… Your father did something good for my family in 1944, particularly for my mother. I would not be alive and writing to you if it were not for him.

I omitted specifics. I intended to open a safe dialogue, but a week later the SS officer’s photo disappeared from the genealogy site. His tree was changed to “private” and blocked from my view. I never received a response.

I thought I’d be able to establish for the officer’s daughter that whatever she knew about her father’s past, on one occasion he’d done something good. But perhaps I confronted her with questions she did not want to consider. I don’t know exactly what I thought I’d gain if I knew more, but part of me couldn’t rest until I did. It had nothing to do with forgiveness – not after what the Reich did to my family and millions of other families.

I thought if I had reached her, she might have shared details about her father that humanised him. Made him less of a monster. But why would that make any difference? The fact is that he inflicted horrible atrocities on Polish prisoners. Maybe I hoped even the most heinous among us were capable of good. But how would knowing that in a tangible way change anything? I was left with the same question I’d started with: how can a murderer and saviour live in the same man?

My grandmother believed there is evil inside all of us. “When the opportunity comes up, like during the war… it happens,” she said.

To this day, I don’t understand completely why she chose me as her confidante. Perhaps she knew I’d search for evidence to round out her unbearable memories, like a dog digging for a buried bone, unearthing horrible truths that were too traumatic for her to recall.

I will never know the full extent of what that Nazi took from her. I read about officers who coerced women into sexual acts in exchange for food, to defer executions, to save a husband, a mother, a son, or a daughter. But this particular officer could have taken my grandmother’s jewels and killed her. By all accounts, that officer should have killed my mother, too. Whatever his motivations were, he saved their lives.

All my searching has taught me that truth, if we find it, can be ugly. The world isn’t straightforward – good or evil. Heroes can be repulsive, and the line between right or wrong, guilty or blameless, is not always clear. Despite this, whenever I find myself crediting the Nazi with decency, it feels like I’m betraying my grandmother. And the women he beat. And the millions of people the Nazis murdered.

“You might forget the names,” my grandmother said. “But you don’t forget what happened.”

The Holocaust didn’t start with gas chambers. It began when people decided a group of their fellow citizens was the enemy. My grandmother often said that when the societal norms of respect and decency collapse, we’re all capable of treating each other like animals. When we dehumanise others, we can find ways to justify the denial of rights and embrace all kinds of depravity and violence.

The man whose name I found and chose not to make public for the sake of his daughter did unspeakable things. He is also the reason I exist.

Karen Kirsten is the author of Irena’s Gift, a 2025 National Jewish Book Award Finalist, winner of Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming, and Australian Jewish Book Award Finalist. An Australian-American, Karen has lived in five countries and now calls the USA home. You can find more info about her at www.karenkirsten.com.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

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Lady Gaga’s most startling transformation yet… from wild, drug-taking pop star to trad-wife and doting mum

Published

10 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

Lady Gaga, the pop singer who has made a career out of reinvention and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planet

Dressed down in pyjama bottoms and an oversized cardigan, she could have been all-too easily mistaken for any sleep-deprived new mother enjoying a leisurely stroll in the Californian sunshine.

Cradling her baby tightly against her chest, her low-key fiancé walking beside her in shorts and a baseball cap, the woman barely warranted a second glance from locals in the affluent hamlet of Ross, just north of San Francisco.

But anyone scrutinising the family a little more closely would have realised that this was no ordinary suburban mum. Far from it. This was, albeit improbably, Lady Gaga.

The pop singer – who has made a career out of reinvention and has sold millions of records, won an Oscar, and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planet – may have pulled off her most unlikely transformation yet: ‘trad’ wife and mother.

Gone, at least for the moment, are the elaborate costumes, the towering heels and headline-grabbing outfits that have become synonymous with the superstar.

In their place are discreetly comfortable clothes, a baby in her arms, and a quiet life in a well-heeled California community, where she has been spotted sipping red wine at The Corner Bar, buying pots and pans at Crate and Barrel – similar to the upmarket furniture and homeware store Heal’s – and driving herself to Pilates at the wheel of her £31,000 Tesla with a baby seat in the back.

It marks the start of an unstarry new chapter for the 40-year-old whose every public appearance has been a spectacle.

Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months old.

‘Rose’ is reportedly a tribute to one of Gaga’s favourite songs, Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie En Rose. Gaga already has a rose tattooed on her back alongside the title of the song.

Lady Gaga, the pop singer who has made a career out of reinvention and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planet

The baby’s unusual middle name is said to honour the late civil rights activist Carl Bean, whose 1977 anthem I Was Born This Way inspired Gaga’s iconic 2011 hit, Born This Way.

For Gaga, whose career has been built on theatrical stagecraft and a larger-than-life persona, Rose Bean’s name offers a surprisingly intimate glimpse into her quiet new life.

And as one local described it, Gaga’s latest incarnation is, apparently, as a ‘trad’ – or, traditional – wife. The woman, who has seen the star out and about in Ross, a tree-lined town of 2,500 residents, said: ‘This small town is very quiet. Most people here are from the tech world and Silicon Valley. You see her and Michael around but they are very low-key. Occasionally she’s with a woman who looks like a personal assistant but she’s not surrounded by bodyguards.

‘I barely noticed her the first time I saw her in the coffee shop but I did see the massive diamond ring on her engagement finger.

‘That’s when I realised who she was. No one makes a fuss over her here and that seems to be the way she likes it.’ Gaga – real name Stefani Germanotta – moved into her fiancé’s £7.5 million four-bedroom home in Ross at the start of the summer, leaving behind the £16 million beachfront mansion in Malibu she has called home for more than a decade.

Another local said: ‘The house in Ross is modest when you consider how rich she is [Gaga is reportedly worth £220 million] but it’s cosy and surrounded by trees.

‘You can’t see anything from the road. Michael bought the place a few years ago, long before they got together. He’s a really good guy, quiet and respectful.’

In a rare interview with a technology magazine, Harvard-educated Polansky said that the couple – who are engaged and have been dating since 2019 – met through Gaga’s mother Cynthia, who runs the singer’s Born This Way charitable foundation. Polansky made his money in tech after befriending Sean Parker, one of the co-founders of Facebook.

He now runs a company that uses ‘spare’ human skin left over from medical procedures to test new drugs, and sits on the board of Parker’s cancer charity.

Polansky told Tech Crunch magazine: ‘[Cynthia] had said, you know, for months and months, “I want to set you up with my daughter”. I was like, I think you’re making fun of me.’

But when he and Gaga met at the end of 2019 ‘it all made perfect sense’, he said. When the pandemic hit and everything shut down in the spring of 2020, he moved into Gaga’s Malibu mansion.

A neighbour told The Mail on Sunday: ‘You would see them walking along the beach with her two French bulldogs, deep in conversation.

‘Michael is a big teddy bear of a man and very sweet.

‘It was probably the longest time I’d ever seen her at the house. She was there for months and months. By the time lockdown ended they were a solid couple and the next thing I heard was they’re engaged.’

For her part, Gaga calls Michael ‘the love of my life’. ‘He’s my best friend in the whole world,’ she said. ‘He just blew me away from the minute I met him. He always, I think, really saw me and I think I always really saw him.’

Motherhood and marriage have been on Gaga’s mind for a while.

In interviews to promote her global Mayhem Ball tour, which ended in April, she spoke repeatedly about wanting to take time off and start a family, telling one US talkshow host: ‘I’m hoping motherhood will be my next starring role.’

It has been widely reported that Gaga used a surrogate to become a mother, something her representatives declined to comment on last night. But one source said: ‘She was photographed a lot up to the end of April when the tour ended. She had three songs in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which came out in May, and she did a bit of promotional work for that and then she disappeared.

‘No one ever saw her looking pregnant in public.’

Birth records show Rose was born on June 9 at 11.19pm at Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA.

Join the discussion

Has Lady Gaga’s shift to quiet motherhood changed how you view celebrity lifestyles and priorities?

Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months old

The source, who calls Gaga by the nickname her friends and family use, said: ‘Stefi completely dropped out this summer and went into nesting mode. She and Michael took the summer off and went to northern California and hunkered down.

‘People were gossiping about her going silent but we all thought that maybe she and Michael had eloped. When the news broke about the baby it was a surprise but only because she managed to keep it a secret.’

The source added: ‘No one is surprised she’s become a mum, it’s what she always wanted.’

Gaga’s new role comes amid a life marked by extraordinary highs and lows.

She has spoken openly about the trauma of being raped by a music producer 20 years her senior when she was just 19 and starting out.

Speaking on the 2021 Apple TV series The Me You Can’t See, which was the brainchild of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey, she says the rapist ‘dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parents’ house, because I was vomiting and sick’.

The assault left her with such severe PTSD that she used drugs and alcohol to numb the emotional pain, saying she would smoke up to 20 marijuana joints in a day and was a habitual user of cocaine.

A ‘psychotic break’ came during filming of A Star Is Born in 2018 (for which the song Shallow won her an Oscar).

She was hospitalised and began taking the powerful anti-psychotic drug lithium.

She said: ‘I had a total psychotic break and, for a couple of years, I was not the same girl.’

Gaga, who took her stage name from the 1984 Queen song Radio Ga Ga, has always used music to heal her pain and connect with others who felt alienated.

Her followers, who call themselves ‘Little Monsters’ and refer to her as ‘Mother Monster’, lapped it up as she constantly reinvented herself, often through performances or appearances designed to shock or provoke.

When she sang Paparazzi at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards she wore a lace bodysuit that began leaking gallons of fake blood.

Then there was her raw meat dress, which she explained was a protest against the US military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for gay soldiers. ‘The message was that if people don’t stand up for their rights they will soon have as many rights as the meat on their bones,’ she said.

Another time she arrived at the Grammys inside a giant translucent egg and ‘hatched’ on stage before singing Born This Way.

‘I like to liberate myself with my ability to change,’ she has admitted. ‘I’m a chameleon.’

She sold 170 million records thanks to hits like Poker Face and Bad Romance, became a fashion icon, Hollywood star, LGBTQ+ activist – she admitted to being bisexual in a 2009 interview – and, most recently, make-up guru thanks to her best-selling Haus Labs cruelty-free cosmetics brand.

There were two failed engagements along the way to actor Taylor Kinney and talent agent Christian Carino.

While friends say Polansky does not want to be in the public eye, he has become involved in Gaga’s world, sharing writing credits on some of her recent songs including a ballad called Blade of Grass about their engagement.

She said: ‘A long time ago we were in the backyard and he said, “If I ever propose to you what should I do?” I said, “You can just wrap a blade of grass around my finger and I’ll say yes.”

‘Michael’s sense of gravity might be the thing that I was attracted to about him the most.

‘None of my tricks were gonna work on him.

‘So many people in my life were looking to me for a good time. He saw the “real” me, not that stage version. I feel like a healthy, whole person for the first time.’

There may be another surprise lurking behind the couple’s apparently quiet life together.

While Gaga is widely assumed to be the bigger earner, one friend claims Polansky has amassed a fortune of his own through his technology investments and shares.

‘Everyone assumes that Gaga’s the richest one in that relationship, but I wouldn’t be so certain,’ the friend said.

‘Michael is close friends with Sean Parker who founded Napster and Facebook and is worth billions. I’m not saying Michael is worth billions, but the word on the street in Silicon Valley is that he’s worth several hundred million.

‘He’s not someone who is chasing Gaga’s money. He’s done very well for himself.’

The couple were seen alighting from a private jet in Los Angeles last week, with Gaga protectively cradling baby Rose beneath her trench coat.

As she settles back into her Malibu mansion, the woman who once made provocation her calling card appears to be rebelling in a rather different direction.

But motherhood could well be her most satisfying role to date.

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Man United latest: JJ Gabriel warning issued as Michael Carrick sends indirect message

Published

17 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

Manchester United have endured a difficult start to the season, with the Red Devils winning just one of their opening five matches as academy youngster JJ Gabriel pushes to leave the club

Manchester United’s season hasn’t started particularly brightly, with Michael Carrick’s side struggling to find much consistency during the opening weeks of the campaign.

A 1-0 defeat by Manchester City last weekend left United with just one victory from their first four Premier League matches and their problems deepened in midweek when Brighton completed a remarkable comeback at Old Trafford, overturning a two-goal deficit to knock them out of the League Cup.

Carrick has also had to contend with injuries disrupting his squad, while uncertainty away from the pitch has now added another unwanted complication. One of the club’s most highly rated academy prospects, JJ Gabriel, is pushing for an exit despite being viewed as a player with enormous potential.

The 15-year-old is yet to establish himself in Carrick’s first-team plans, but his situation has quickly become one of the biggest talking points around the club. United had hoped to nurture Gabriel as part of the next generation coming through their academy, making the latest developments particularly uncomfortable.

With much of the momentum and optimism that was built up at the end of last season beginning to fade, there is plenty for United to address. Here are the latest Manchester United headlines:

Carrick sends JJ Gabriel message

Michael Carrick appears to have sent an indirect message to JJ Gabriel after another academy prospect, Shea Lacey, enjoyed a memorable moment for Manchester United against Brighton on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old was handed a starting role on the right wing and wasted little time making his mark, cutting inside before firing a left-footed finish into the net after just seven minutes.

Lacey’s goal was his first for the senior side and another reminder of the pathway available to United’s academy players. Despite the disappointing outcome against Brighton, Carrick was keen to underline the importance of the youngster’s achievement.

“I’m delighted for him,” he said. “The way the game pans out and the finish of the game and the result, I think it takes it away a little bit but, when the dust settles and he can have a moment, I think he can be very proud of himself because it was a big moment for him.”

The United boss subsequently appeared to point towards the club’s academy system when discussing the possibility of another young player making the step up.

“So many people in the academy work so hard and it’s what this club has been built upon. So Shea’s had that moment… and we’ll see who brings it on to having the next opportunity because we always look forward to the next one.”

Gabriel had been expected by some to feature in the squad against Brighton, but was ultimately left out. The teenager made his senior United debut during a pre-season meeting with Atletico Madrid in August, coming on for eight minutes, but has not been involved with the first team since.

JJ Gabriel situation ‘stinks’

Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has described the situation surrounding JJ Gabriel as something that “stinks”, while questioning whether people around the teenager are pushing him towards making decisions too quickly.

The former England captain highlighted United’s long-standing reputation for producing and developing academy talent, arguing that Old Trafford already provides Gabriel with an environment capable of supporting his progression.

“I don’t know what’s been said or promised behind the scenes, but from the outside this stinks to me that someone is forcing it and pushing it and rushing it. And I don’t think it’s going to help the kid in any way shape or form,” Gerrard said on TNT Sports.

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“It scares me that kids can be rushed or careers can be forced. I don’t know the details with JJ Gabriel, but if you look at it all, he’s at one of the biggest clubs in the world. They have a history and a tradition of producing fantastic players… when they feel like he’s ready, they’ll play him.

“These talents, they have parents, they have agents and they outside influencers that force and they push too soon… and it can affect the kid’s career.”

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Transfer news LIVE: Shock Arsenal FC twist, Alvarez update; JJ Gabriel talks; Man Utd plan; Chelsea, Liverpool latest

Published

23 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

Transfer news LIVE: Shock Arsenal FC twist, Alvarez update; JJ Gabriel talks; Man Utd plan; Chelsea, Liverpool latest

The summer window may be shut but Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham are already making significant progress towards January signings. Arsenal are keen on a deal for Eli Junior Kroupi, while Julian Alvarez could be switching agents in another twist to that long-running saga. The Gunners continue to be linked with Rio Ngumoha and are believed to be scouting midfield prodigy Luca Weinhandl, while they could loan out Max Dowman and it is has been said that Mykhailo Mudryk wanted to move to the Emirates Stadium.

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Pictures as thousands flock to Stokesley Show 2026

Published

31 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

Pictures as thousands flock to Stokesley Show 2026

Now in its 166th year, the annual show once again transformed the Stokesley Showground into a celebration of the region’s agricultural heritage, welcoming competitors, exhibitors and families from across North Yorkshire.

Cattle, sheep, horses, goats, poultry and other livestock competed throughout the day before the traditional Grand Parade showcased the top performing animals.

Beyond the livestock rings, marquees were packed with horticulture, baking, arts and crafts entries, while dog and companion animal classes drew crowds.

The event drew crowds of more than 20,000 people and around 2,500 animals, making it one of the region’s biggest agricultural shows.

Food also played a starring role throughout the day, with visitors sampling everything from local produce and artisan goods to street food and sweet treats.

The popular Scrumptiously Stokesley food hall returned for 2026, showcasing independent producers and makers from across the area.

More than 130 trade stands offered clothing, gifts, homeware, gardening products and children’s attractions.

While the event celebrates farming traditions stretching back more than a century and a half, organisers say its continued success is built on the support of hundreds of volunteers, stewards, exhibitors and members of the Stokesley Agricultural Society who work behind the scenes to bring the show to life each year.

Whether they came to admire prize-winning livestock, enjoy the entertainment, sample local food or simply soak up the atmosphere, showgoers were treated to another memorable day in the rural calendar.

Scroll through our gallery to see some of the best pictures from this year’s Stokesley Show:

Stokesley Show returned for another celebration of farming, food and rural life. (Image: AF Photography)

Stokesley Show returned for another celebration of farming, food and rural life. (Image: AF)

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The ‘disgusting and stinky’ fetish men and women find super attractive

Published

45 minutes ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

The 'disgusting and stinky' fetish men and women find super attractive

It’s becoming increasingly popular on fetish sites (Picture: Getty Images)

Stood outside the pub on a Saturday night, wine in hand, you’re often hit with a waft of smoke as someone puffs on their cigarette.

But, if you turn your nose up, you’re actually in a growing minority.

While it might once have been considered a dirty habit, we’re now increasingly turned on by the idea of smoking, with sales of smoking fetish porn up 58% from the beginning of the year, according to Clips4Sale.

Smoking was also the sixth most searched term in the UK for the porn site, pointing to an insatiable demand for sex and a smoke.

We know it’s become chic again for celebrities, too, with certain A-listers like Charli XCX even dubbed ‘cigfluencers’. Margot Robbie was filmed on the set of Ocean’s Eleven prequel with a cigarette in hand, with one fan saying: ‘She is looking so stunning and hot while smoking.’

Dua Lipa has also been accused of making ‘smoking cool again’ after being pictured cigarette in hand multiple times, and even reportedly having bowls of cigarettes at her wedding after-party for guests.

To some it’s hot, to others, it’s horrible (Picture: Getty Images/Image Source)

And, multiple men have confessed to being enamoured with women they’ve seen puffing. ‘I don’t know why but whenever I see a woman smoking, whether that be in real life or in movies, I just find it super attractive and sexy, it makes the girl look so badass and cool,’ wrote one on Reddit.

Another said it was a ‘100% yes, hot as f**k’, while someone added: ‘Nothing more sexy than a pretty woman with a cigarette.’

But not everyone understands the allure of this aesthetic, with others branding smoking ‘completely irrational’ and unpleasant.

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‘I hate smoking with every ounce of my being,’ wrote one, while another called it a ‘disgusting, unhealthy, and stinky’ habit.

14060723 Fears over celebrities making smoking 'cool' again as stars sparking up are on the rise https://www.instagram.com/p/C-TGRD_S6kv/?img_index=3 — Charli is often credited for making smoking cool (Picture: Charli XCX/Instagram)

Why can smoking be a turn-on?

As for those who do find it a turn-on, psychosexual therapist Becky Crepsley-Fox tells Metro there’s rarely one single reason someone finds smoking sexy.

‘Usually it’s a combination of aesthetics, psychology and a bit of cultural conditioning,’ she explains. ‘For some, it’s purely visual. There’s something they find elegant, almost cinematic, about the act itself — the way the breath is drawn in and the smoke slowly exhaled.

‘It’s slow, deliberate and performative, which can feel sexual.’

Few of us can forget the moment Sandy from Grease stepped out in her leather jacket, voluminous perm and cigarette she stumped out with her red stiletto.

Of course, for others the appeal can be more of a suggestive one. ‘The lips are one of our most sensitive, intimate areas,’ Becky adds.

‘The act of wrapping them around something phallic and slowly drawing the smoke in, the imagination can wander straight towards oral sex.’

It’s an act that carries a lot of cultural weight, too, according to the sex expert. ‘Ever since the early days of Hollywood, cigarettes have been the accessory of the glamorous, the wealthy and the powerful — so, for many, they still hold an air of allure and control.’

Closeup side view asian man smoking while woman and baby get second hand smoke problem — Make no mistake, it’s terrible for you and everyone around you (Picture: Getty Images)

The taboo

Another major selling point for smoking is that it’s a little but, well, wrong.

Becky continues: ‘We now know smoking is bad for us, and doing something you’re “not supposed to” can feel deliciously rebellious.

‘In that sense it has a lot in common with sex. Sex is an entirely natural human behaviour that many of us still feel we have to hide, and for some people that forbidden quality is exactly what’s arousing.’

There can also be a power dynamic at play.

‘An erotic charge in watching someone do something that’s “bad” for them, or in the sense that the eroticism of the moment outweighs any thought of the consequences. When desire wins out over risk, that can feel powerful in itself,’ says Becky.

A turn on or a fetish?

It’s important to note though, that being turned on by seeing someone snoke, is different from it being a fetish.

Becky explains the distinction: ‘A turn-on adds to the experience, whereas a fetish is something a person genuinely needs to be present to get aroused,’ she says.

‘So, yes, smoking can be a fetish for some — but for many others it’s just something they find sexy, rather than something they can’t get there without.’

As for where a fetish can come from, they can be traced back to early experiences, frequently around puberty.

‘It might be an association formed while watching a glamorous smoking scene at the very age our sexuality is coming online — or a stretch of time where smoking and those first sexual feelings happened to overlap, and the brain wired the two together,’ says Becky.

‘Fetishes can form almost anywhere, but smoking offers a particularly rich mix of imagery and meaning for that to latch onto.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk

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JAN MOIR: Celebrities? There are more stars in my local Waitrose than on the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing!

Published

58 minutes ago

20 September 2026

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Dani Dyer and professional dancer Nikita Kuzmin star in this year's series of Strictly

Things have reached a sorry pass when it is not the contestants but the dance show itself which is on its last legs, but this is where we are with Strictly.

Now in its 24th series, this former jewel in the BBC‘s crown returned on Saturday night, a tarnished tiara in comparison to the sparkle of its former greatness.

The line-up boasted three new hosts and five new pro dancers plus a Niagara of nonentities vying for the glitterball trophy, thundering about in their freshly unboxed jazz shoes like wildebeest.

Even with my star-spotting lorgnettes perched eagerly on nostrils professionally primed for any sniff of celebrity, the view from the sofa was disappointing.

Who were these duds in the fringed frocks and spangled shirts?

The class of 2026 includes Hollywood ‘hair king’ Chris Appleton; content creator John Nellis; the omelette lady from Gavin & Stacey, a ‘philanthropist’ called Delta; a random called Cach from Love Island; someone named Graeme who is a ‘canine expert’; plus a total Dingle from Emmerdale, if you get my drift.

As they paraded through the ballroom of broken dreams, they made Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb seem like A-list movie stars clamouring around an Oscar podium.

Earlier on Saturday night there were more celebrities in my local branch of Waitrose than there were on this show, and I’m not even joking.

Dani Dyer and professional dancer Nikita Kuzmin star in this year’s series of Strictly

Television personality Emma Willis (pictured, centre), former Strictly professional Johannes Radebe (right) and comedian Josh Widdicombe (left) seemed absolutely thrilled to be there

The trio have taken over from Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, who departed the BBC show at the end of the 2025 series

A new era needs new hosts, and television personality Emma Willis, former Strictly professional Johannes Radebe and comedian Josh Widdicombe seemed absolutely thrilled to be there – and it was nice that someone was.

‘Never in a million years did I think it would be the three of us standing in this spot,’ said Johannes, who spoke for us all.

Perhaps it is too soon to judge, but the three-presenter format seems awkward and forced.

Emma is a total pro, even if she did ask someone from EastEnders if ‘being in the ballroom is very different from home life for you’. Yet neither Johannes’ muddy diction nor Josh’s sniggering are alluring.

Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly left last year – perhaps they felt they’d had more than enough after a series of scandals rocked the show and made many faithful fans lose faith.

I won’t miss Tess – there are fringed lampshades with more to contribute to showbusiness – but Claudia undeniably brought an irreplaceable spark, wit and style. She has gone off to Celebrity Traitors, and the tragedy and irony is that she has taken all the celebrities with her.

Look at the stars appearing on that series this season – including James Blunt, Jerry Hall, Michael Sheen and Ross Kemp.

Once, this would have been the dream Strictly line-up, but that is the problem. Now, with plummeting viewing figures and a lustre that’s lacking, Strictly can only dream.

The class of 2026 boasted three new hosts and five new pro dancers

Actress Jaime Winstone has been partnered with Carlos Gu, who will be hoping to replicate his 2025 win with Karen Carney

British skeleton racer Tabby Stoecker is with another new pro Mark Karmalita

Celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton is with show veteran and fan favourite Amy Dowden

Yet there is still much to admire in this family-friendly show. The sheer creative power and energy of the production team who put this behemoth together every year is wondrous to behold – Saturday night’s six-minute opening number was testament to the skill and talent of all involved.

Just look at the costumes, the hair, the make-up, the music, the lighting, the dancing, the choreography! These elements are still tremendous, the BBC at its best.

Yet the new way of pairing the couples seemed unnecessarily complicated, and why is everything so shrieky and LOUD?

There are 13 weeks to go until the final, so time will tell if any of these changes will work. Yet the truth is that Strictly feels like it has overstayed its welcome.

When it launched in 2004, Tony Blair was our prime minister and Facebook had just been launched. It was a long, long time ago. For how much longer can Strictly stagger on?

STRICTLY COME DANCING 2026: MEET THE CONTESTANTS

LACEY TURNER

AGE: 38

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Playing Stacey Slater on BBC’s EastEnders

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I’m so excited and terrified at the same time but I’ve had so many friends do Strictly and I thought it was about time that I plunked up the courage and made my way onto that dance floor.’

DELTA GOODREM

AGE: 41

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Played Nina Tucker in Neighbours and has released eight music albums

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I’ve been incredibly honoured to perform on many different stages throughout my career – from tv, theatre, film sets, to touring my own shows around the world, there is however one stage I’ve never stepped onto and that is the ballroom floor!’

CACH MERCER

AGE: 25

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Won Love Island 2025 and is a TikTok influencer

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I have grown up watching the show with my family and am so excited to now be part of the cast. Dancing is a huge passion of mine and I can’t wait to learn Ballroom and do the Foxtrot for the first time!’

DAME SARAH STOREY

AGE: 48

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Britain’s most successful Paralympian

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘Embarking on a new challenge so soon after stepping down as an athlete is hugely exciting.’

BETHANY ANTONIA

AGE: 28

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Plays Lady Baela Targaryen in House of the Dragon

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I have grown up watching Strictly, and I am so excited to take the challenge on and (hopefully!) learn a new skill.’

GRAEME ‘THE DOGFATHER’ HALL

AGE: 59

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Hosts Channel 5 series Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I have watched the show for years, so to be a part of it feels like a very exciting challenge, albeit more than a bit nerve-wracking!’

TABBY STOECKER

AGE: 25

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Olympic champion skeleton racer

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I’ve had the wildest year of my life so far, so to be rounding it off with a childhood dream of dancing in the Strictly ballroom is surreal and I can’t wait to get stuck in!’

MELANIE WALTERS

AGE: 64

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Playing Gwen West in BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘Performing in Pantomime for the last 15 years, my Strictly ‘fix’ has always been watching in a dressing room rather than my front room.’

DANI DYER

AGE: 30

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Winning Love Island and being the daughter of actor Danny Dyer

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I am so excited to be back in the ballroom this September! I just cannot wait to get my dancing shoes back on and hopefully this time around I can actually make it to week one!’

CHRIS APPLETON

AGE: 43

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Hairdresser to the stars – including Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I’m thrilled to be joining Strictly and coming home to the UK for this incredible experience. I’ve always believed that the best things happen when you take a chance and try something new.’

WILL BEST

AGE: 41

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Hosts Big Brother and previously TV

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I’ve been lucky to do lots of live telly before, but absolutely nothing like this. And I cannot wait!’

JAIME WINSTONE

AGE: 41

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Starring in films such as Kidulthood and Tomb Raider

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I am no stranger to a dance floor, but the ballroom is a whole new world for me.’

SHAUN WRIGHT-PHILLIPS

AGE: 44

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Footballer who played for the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘Strictly is definitely outside my comfort zone, but I’m super excited to get started and really looking forward to the challenge!’

LAWRENCE ROBB

AGE: 34

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Plays Mackenzie Boyd on ITV’s Emmerdale

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I can’t quite believe that I am going to be getting my dancing shoes on this September on one of my favourite shows of all time!’

JOHN NELLIS

AGE: 33

BEST KNOWN FOR?: Face of a popular football-focused YouTube channel

WHY STRICTLY?: ‘I can’t wait to meet everyone, learn a new skill and, hopefully, be much better at family parties by the end of it!’

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A state funeral in Hong Kong honors Tung Chee-hwa, the city’s first post-colonial leader

Published

1 hour ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

A state funeral in Hong Kong honors Tung Chee-hwa, the city's first post-colonial leader

A state funeral was held Sunday for Hong Kong‘s first post-colonial leader, Tung Chee-hwa, who led the city through the initial years of its transition from British rule after it was returned to China in 1997.

Chinese officials and Hong Kong political leaders attended the service, only the third state funeral in the former British colony since the 1997 handover.

Tung, a shipping magnate who was the city’s chief executive from 1997 to 2005, died Sept. 8 at the age of 89. He grappled with the Asian financial crisis, SARS epidemic and public protests during his nearly eight years in office.

Flower wreaths lined the wall outside the Hong Kong Funeral Home and Tung’s casket, draped in a Chinese flag, could be seen being brought out after the service in live video streamed online by Hong Kong media. The media were not allowed inside.

Shi Taifeng, a member of the Politburo of China’s ruling Communist Party, and Xia Baolong, the director of China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, left the funeral in a white minibus with Hong Kong’s current leader, John Lee.

About 200 people were invited to the service, an attendee told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper. Others paid condolences at three venues set up around the city.

After his death, the Chinese government described Tung as a close friend of the Communist Party and an outstanding contributor to the one-country, two systems framework that governs Hong Kong and nearby Macao, a former Portuguese colony returned to China in 1999.

Not long after Tung took office in 1997, Hong Kong’s economy was battered by a financial crisis that swept across Asia. In 2003, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) killed nearly 300 people in the city and dealt another blow to the economy.

The same year, an estimated half-million people took to the streets to protest the government’s plan to enact an anti-treason law that was seen as a threat to civil liberties. The government shelved the plan, and Tung resigned in 2005, citing health reasons.

The 2003 protest marked the start of years of pro-democracy protests that came to a head in 2019 and were followed by a crackdown and a Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020.

After stepping down, Tung was elected vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body. He was among 42 people who received national medals and honors in 2019 for their contributions to the country.

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Why growing older LGBTQ+ community in Britain fears losing identity

Published

1 hour ago

20 September 2026

NewsAdmin

A tightly cropped photo of a woman in her 70s with short grey hair looking up at the sky, smiling. She has sunglasses on, and bright red lipstick that matches her leather jacket. Graffiti is in the background, slightly out of focus.

As a 75-year-old lesbian, Mindy Meleyal has lived through every major milestone in the modern LGBT rights movement, from the start of decriminalisation in 1967 to the first same-sex marriages in 2014.

But now she says this important part of her identity is frequently overlooked due to her age.

She’s part of England’s older LGBTQ+ community, which a new report suggests often experiences poorer health, more limited finances and greater social isolation than the wider older population.

The report, from the Centre for Ageing Better, says without specialist support, this growing demographic could be forced “back into the closet” when accessing care, warning they may even delay getting the care they need because of concerns about homophobia.

Adam Porter, a housing development manager from the LGBT Foundation charity, says he regularly meets older members of the community in exactly that situation.

“It’s very common for people to hide things if they have a carer visiting their home, for example hiding their wedding photos or taking down a trans flag,” he says.

“In the case of someone moving into a care environment, that means hiding who they are in their own home, for what could be the rest of their life.”

He says he has been “horrified” by some of the stories he has heard meeting older LGBTQ+ people, including some who have had carers offer to “pray for them” regarding their sexuality.

Porter is part of the team behind Kindred House, a first-of-its-kind LGBTQ+ social housing scheme for over-55s, set to open in Manchester next year.

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REV GILES FRASER: Church’s ‘Hamas tribute’ is yet another howler from our posturing progressives

Published

2 hours ago

20 September 2026

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Rev Giles Fraser criticised the Church's involvement in Gaza and Israel, arguing that these issues are distracting from its core responsibility to serve local congregations

By REV GILES FRASER, CHURCH OF ENGLAND VICAR AND BROADCASTER

Published: 00:35 BST, 20 September 2026 | Updated: 02:11 BST, 20 September 2026

To those of us just trying to get on with the job of being a vicar, it is depressing that the Church of England’s leadership has become so ideologically captured by the progressive lanyard class.

Last week Leeds Minster ran a pro-Palestinian project featuring a tapestry depicting the victims of the Gaza war – including, it transpires, dozens of Hamas terrorists.

Not again, I sighed, as I was photocopying service sheets, worrying about getting a new treasurer and thinking about one of my congregation having chemotherapy.

But it feels like the Church leadership would prefer parishes address global causes, from Gaza to historic slavery, rather than look after the spiritual needs of our communities.

It dumbfounds me that the Church wants to give up £100million for slavery reparations – and to take this money from a fund established by Queen Anne in 1704 for the benefit of churches and poor clergy.

They want us to be Net Zero by 2030, which is plainly impossible to achieve, given that we are custodians of the largest number of listed, medieval and frankly draughty buildings in the country.

They pass grossly one-sided resolutions on Israel and Gaza that have set back interfaith relations with the Jewish community by years.

So the fact that the tapestry exhibition in Leeds had to be cancelled due to a lack of forethought and, as a result, complaints by Jewish groups is, sadly, no surprise.

Rev Giles Fraser criticised the Church’s involvement in Gaza and Israel, arguing that these issues are distracting from its core responsibility to serve local congregations

The tapestry, called Stitch Their Names Together, listed the names of people who have died in the conflict with Israel and had been due to remain on display at Leeds Minster until Sunday

It does not make for a good week for the Church of England.

A few days ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, was forced to withdraw an award given to Muslim cleric Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, after it emerged that he had praised Osama Bin Laden and called Hamas attackers ‘freedom fighters’.

In June, she visited a woman active in the student wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organisation that participated in the October 7 2023 attack.

She was photographed next to a painting of the woman’s uncle, who Mossad assassinated for helping organise the 1972 murder of Israeli athletes in Munich.

This could all be just naivety, but I suspect the problem stems from how the Church hierarchy sees itself.

In their minds, they are more like politicians, who see Christianity as the same as liberal progressive politics, which requires them to save the world – though not in a salvation kind of way.

Our archbishops fly into conflict zones as if they were global ambassadors. The Church Commissioners sit on £11.6billion in assets while we struggle to make ends meet with a few faithful volunteers.

Until the Church shakes off its political posturing and sense of self-importance, it will continue to make these howlers, which only serve to alienate the parishioners we are called to attend.

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Scroll through our gallery to see some of the best pictures from this year’s Stokesley Show:

The ‘disgusting and stinky’ fetish men and women find super attractive

Ask Metro

Why can smoking be a turn-on?

The taboo

A turn on or a fetish?

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JAN MOIR: Celebrities? There are more stars in my local Waitrose than on the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing!

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