When I met Lissie Harper in No10 Downing Street in November 2021, we didn’t discuss the way in which her husband lost his life at the hands of three teenage thieves exactly seven years ago tomorrow.

We didn’t go into the details – because they were just too horrific.

Lissie had come to see me, as PM, to discuss her proposals for Harper’s Law – how to ensure that in future we properly punish criminals who kill members of the emergency services.

The widow of PC Andrew Harper was dignified, brave and determined. There was no need during the course of our conversation to ask her to relive the cruelty of her husband’s suffering. But it is important for readers to recall the essentials.

PC Harper lost his life late that August evening in 2019, in a narrow rural lane in Berkshire, after heroically trying to stop three members of the ‘travelling community’ from stealing a quad bike.

He tried to grab one of them, who dived through the rear window of the getaway Seat Toledo, shouting to his accomplices to ‘Drive, drive!’. As Henry Long, then 18, floored the accelerator, the 28-year-old police officer was tragically entangled in the towrope used to steal the quad.

For just over a mile, they dragged him behind the car, furiously weaving from side to side in an effort to shake him off. By the time they finally stopped, he was unrecognisable.

Another driver mistook the police officer’s body for the bloodied carcass of a deer.

PC Harper lost his life late in August 2019, in a narrow rural lane in Berkshire, after heroically trying to stop the theft of a quad bike

Of course, the criminals later claimed that they did not realise they were dragging a 14st human being behind their car; and, even if you think their denials implausible, that point was hard to establish in court – at least beyond a reasonable doubt.

But whatever exactly they knew or believed, it seemed to Lissie Harper, and it seemed to me, as I listened to her, that they were still morally culpable for his death.

They were habitual criminals who had set out to commit a serious and dangerous crime, with crowbars and other equipment in the boot. They had disabled the rear lights of the Toledo to avoid pursuit.

They had discussed what to do if the police nabbed them, and the importance of fleeing the scene at top speed. Even if – which I seriously doubt – they were initially unaware of what they were doing, they were guilty of killing a police officer in the course of criminal activity. That is, in my view, a particularly heinous crime.

A police officer – or a firefighter or a paramedic – is unlike the rest of us in that they have no choice but to go towards danger. They must deliberately put their own lives at risk – as Andrew Harper did – to protect the rest of us, the public.

That is why the law has always tried to give special protection to the police, in recognition of the risks they run every day. Indeed, it remained a capital offence – a crime that can be punished by the death – to kill a police officer until 1965, years after the death penalty was generally abolished.

So, I agreed with Lissie and the family of PC Harper, and his many supporters, that the sentences for his killers who were found guilty of manslaughter in July 2020 were too soft: only 16 years for the driver, Henry Long, and only 13 years for the two passengers, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole. It did not seem enough, either as a punishment or a deterrent, and the killers seemed to know that they had got off lightly.

That picture of them leaving the court smirking and laughing has become shockingly familiar to us all.

Five months later we passed Harper’s Law, so that anyone who engages in a dangerous and criminal act and kills a police officer or other member of the emergency services would get a life sentence. I know that Lissie and her family took pride and comfort in their achievement – for the benefit of all families of police officers, and other emergency workers, who may lose their lives to criminals.

Jessie Cole (left) and Albert Bowers were sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter after a trial in 2020 following PC Harper’s death

I know that Lissie and her family took pride and comfort in their achievement passing Harper’s Law – for the benefit of all families of police officers, writes Boris Johnson

But of course Harper’s Law is not retrospective. We could not change the way the court had interpreted the law as it previously existed; and for years Andrew Harper’s relatives have had to face the sickening fact that his killers would be out relatively soon.

It was infuriating but unavoidable. Nothing, however, can have prepared the Harper family for the farce that is unfolding now.

Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that a Labour government would come in and change the law – as Starmer did – to allow the release of offenders after serving only half of their sentences.

And it seems utterly incredible that this early-release scheme could apply to people like the killers of PC Harper. But that is what Labour has done.

The new PM, Andy Burnham, was specifically given the option of keeping prisoners with longer sentences in jail. He was told explicitly that this was the way to avoid releasing the killers of PC Harper.

He rejected that option. He knew exactly what that decision entailed – that Bowers and Cole would be among the thousands of serious offenders who would be prematurely disgorged on to the streets of this country, where about 25 per cent of them are statistically bound to reoffend within the first year.

He knew what he was doing, and yet he went ahead. It is only in the face of public outcry that he has backed down.

Having glibly taken the decision to release them, he now says, with equal glibness, that he could not live with his conscience if they were released. My message to Burnham is that the voters may be able to forgive your open-toed sandals – but they simply can’t stomach the flip flops.

He vamoosed for a holiday to somewhere foreign and instructed his hapless Justice Secretary to ‘find a solution’.

Find a solution? How can Alex Norris find a solution? The Prime Minister’s view of the early-release scheme is completely unintelligible. How is Norris supposed to find a solution when Burnham seems to be simultaneously in favour of the early-release scheme – and against it?

It’s Burnham who is PM, not Norris – a man who is probably not even a household name in his own household.

When you get problems like this, with officialdom saying you have no alternative, it is only the Prime Minister who can break the logjam.

Andy Burnham should scrap the early-release scheme, fast, and if he wants to show he cares and understands he should make time to meet Lissie Harper, says Boris Johnson

As Kemi Badenoch has said, there are in fact plenty of solutions. Burnham could make space in our prisons for thousands more UK criminals if he got rid of the Human Rights Act, and deported foreign offenders.

Labour could overcome their Lefty squeamishness and revive our plans to rent prison places abroad. Or they could get a grip and build pop-up prisons.

The truth is that Labour is actually indifferent to the strength of public feeling on this issue – as of yesterday, one million people had signed a petition to keep PC Harper’s killers in jail – because in their hearts they don’t care.

Burnham has specifically rejected Blair and Blairism, and it is clear that in rejecting a tough penal policy we are back to the worst of soggy old Labour – soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.

The PM is failing his first big test. He should scrap the early-release scheme fast and, if he wants to show he cares and understands, he should make time to meet Lissie Harper.

A mayor in Massachusetts was taken into police custody on Friday after being accused of fraudulently securing a pandemic relief loan to settle personal tax obligations, cover high-interest mortgages on multiple properties, and support his own election campaign.

Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena faces single counts of both wire fraud and money laundering following his Friday arrest.

The 61-year-old is accused of fraudulently obtaining a $1.5 million COVID-19 small-business loan meant for his tire sales operation. Rather than using the funds for the business, DePena allegedly spent over $880,000 on high-interest mortgages for several businesses and funneled $90,000 into his mayoral campaign ahead of the 2021 election.

He has been mayor since 2021, having previously served on the Lawrence City Council.

Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, accused DePena of “cashing in on a public health crisis and blatantly defrauding a government program meant to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic.”

“When elected officials misuse federal funds for personal gain, they’re breaking the trust of their constituents — and breaking the law,” Docks said in a statement. “Together, with our partners, the FBI will continue to doggedly pursue anyone who defrauds the federal government. You’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that ‘easy money’ won’t seem so easy after all.”

DePena made an initial appearance in federal court in Boston Friday afternoon. DePena was released after agreeing to several conditions, including turning over his passport and not seeking any loans without court approval.

After leaving court, DePena’s lawyer Carlos Apostle repeatedly responded with “no comment” to questions. DePena, who is a citizen of the United States and Dominican Republic, responded with “God bless” when asked if he would resign. He made no other comments.

In 2020 and 2021, DePena obtained a government disaster loan for Tenares Tire Services Inc., a tire sales and automotive services in Lawrence. During the pandemic, the Small Business Administration offered loans to qualified business that were suffering financial losses.

He used a loan of $150,000 for the business. A year later, prosecutors say, DePena’s mayoral campaign was running short of cash, he owed back taxes and was under pressure to pay back high-interest loans on several of his properties in Lawrence. He then requested several increases to the government loan and allegedly used $1.5 million to cover those expenses unrelated to his tire business.

If convicted on the wire fraud charge, DePena faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 if convicted on the money laudering charge.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, which spearheaded the Kerry dolphin rescue operation, have thanked members of the public for their help after 12 dolphins were saved from an Irish beach stranding

Twelve dolphins stranded on an Irish beach have been successfully rescued.

The pod became trapped on a beach west of Daingean Uí Chúis, in Kerry, on Wednesday.

Of the 21 dolphins in total, nine sadly died before rescuers could reach them.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, which led the operation, has expressed gratitude to members of the public for their assistance.

A member of the public initially alerted Oceanworld Aquarium Dingle, who then contacted the IWDG to help return the dolphins to the sea, reports the Irish Mirror.

Gardai, tourists and locals from the surrounding area all played a part in the rescue effort.

In a statement, the IWDG said: “Through the incredible teamwork of both locals and visitors to the area, 12 dolphins… were successfully refloated.

“This is no small achievement and it was all hands on deck including the local Garda who came down to help carry some of the individuals back to sea.

“We would like to extend our most heartfelt thanks to all those that dropped everything to come and help us today.”

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Keely Hodgkinson was forced to settle for European silver as Switzerland’s Audrey Werro denied the Briton a third consecutive title in a thrilling women’s 800m final in Birmingham.

The most eagerly anticipated event of the championships culminated in the expected three-way battle for supremacy between Hodgkinson, Swiss 22-year-old Werro and Dutch star Femke Broeders-Bol in front of a captivated sellout crowd of 23,000 inside Alexander Stadium.

Seeking to reassert her dominance in the event, Olympic champion Hodgkinson was roared on in pursuit of Werro by her home support but was unable to overhaul her new rival in the closing stages.

Having this season become the fastest athlete since the world record was set 43 years ago, Werro finished strong to land her first major international title in a championship record one minute 54.81 seconds.

While not the medal Hodgkinson had hoped for, silver represented the 24-year-old’s 12th senior international medal since she claimed her first as a teenager at the European Indoor Championships five years ago.

Hodgkinson allowed Werro to take charge on the opening lap before attempting to make her move on the final bend – just as the Swiss had done to her when she prevailed in Stockholm in June – but her rival would not relent.

Her silver, in 1:55.01secs, was the British team’s 10th medal in five days at their home championships, after Zharnel Hughes earlier took silver in the men’s 200m.

Hughes, world 100m bronze medallist in 2023, led coming off the bend but was overhauled by Germany’s fast-finishing Owen Ansah, who took victory in 19.95 seconds.

More to follow.

The all-electric EV9 SUV is available with a choice of trim levels and rear or all-wheel drive.

In this instalment of Drive Time, John tries out the very large Kia EV9 – the company’s all-electric flagship and discovers why it has won so many awards – and finds out Dacia has reduced prices on its hybrid Duster and Bigster models.

Big and very bold, the all-electric EV9 SUV is the flagship of Kia’s range and it has collected numerous global awards since it was launched.

It is available with a choice of trim levels and rear or all-wheel drive and it takes the Korean manufacturer into competition with the luxury European brands.

The latest model to arrive is the GT version which I recently sampled and it cost a whopping £83,845 on the road.

All models share a 99.8kWh long-range battery pack which gives the AWD GT a range of 316 miles and up to 408 miles of city or town driving.

I sampled the EV9 in GT specification with six seats and you can also have it with seven seats if you wish.

At more than five metres long and almost two across, it is a very substantial car with lots of road presence.

The design is boxy but nice lights front and rear help its looks as do the roof rails, flush door handles, privacy glass and large 21-inch alloys.

Kia has also taken the cabin quality up a notch and it features a lot of recycled materials and a huge amount of tech and kit.

The comfortable seats are powered and can be heated or ventilated and the steering wheel can also be heated to make things feel good even in very cold mornings.

Second row passengers are also spoiled with heated and cooled seats.

A three-screen layout that merges into one includes a 12.3-inch driver display, a 5.3-inch climate control touchscreen and a 12.3-inch touchscreen navigation system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Thankfully, switches are provided for the temperature controls.

A good sound system features Bluetooth with voice recognition, a digital key, fingerprint recognition, ambient lighting and OTA software updates, streaming via Kia Connect Store.

The huge cabin offers stacks of space for driver and passengers and all the controls, dials and readouts are perfectly positioned for ease of use.

The high driving position provides good all-round visibility and cameras mean there are no blind spots.

This version is good for a sprint time of 0-62mph in just 4.6 seconds with a top speed of 136mph.

That is impressive for a huge SUV that weighs in at 2.6 tonnes.

The EV9 is a comfortable and quiet motorway cruiser but it does feel very large in town centres where the many parking assist systems become very useful.

Four levels of regenerative braking can be controlled from steering wheel paddles and make it possible to achieve single pedal driving.

The single-speed automatic transmission is smooth and responds quickly and provides rapid injections of pace when you need to overtake.

Surprisingly agile for its size, the EV9 offers a selection of driving modes called Eco, Normal, Sport and My Drive.

And there are also modes to tackle more challenging conditions named Snow, Mud and Sand.

Very practical for family use the EV9 offers 333 litres of luggage space even with all seats in use.

An additional 52 litres is available under the bonnet and this is an ideal spot for charging cables.

The tailgate is powered and there is a huge amount of storage space inside the cabin with many neat features.

Six USB ports along with a wireless charging pad up front mean smartphones and other electronics can stay charged during journeys to keep all the family happy.

When it comes to charging the 99.8kWh battery, it can be boosted from 10 to 80 per cent in one hour 23 minutes if using a 50kW charger or in just 24 minutes via a 350kW unit if you can find one.

Home charging takes just over nine hours on a 11kW charger.

All the latest safety systems are standard and include the likes of blind spot collision warning, rear cross traffic alert, dynamic brake control, trailer stability assist, forward collision avoidance assist, parking collision avoidance and much more.

This means the SUV has a five-star NCAP safety rating.

This flagship model with great performance and crammed with technology and practical features along with a more than decent range takes the Korean brand to a new level.

Big on size, style and performance it is easy to see why the EV9, spoiled with equipment and tech has collected so many awards and even badge snobs should give it a close look.

FAST FACTS:

Price: £83,845 with special paint.

Mechanical: 501bhp,two electric motors driving four wheels via automatic transmission.

Max speed: 136mph.

0-60mph: 4.6 secs.

Range: 316-408 miles.

Insurance group: 45.

CO2 emissions: Zero.

Warranty: Seven years/100,000 miles (eight years battery).

BIK rating: Two per cent.

Overall rating (out of five): 4.5.

In other motoring news, Dacia is cutting prices for Duster and Bigster hybrid 155 models by up to £1750, making two of the UK’s toughest, most useful SUVs even better value for money than before.

Across the Duster range, prices for hybrid 155 models have been lowered by £1750, while Bigster hybrid 155 models have been reduced by £1475.

That means a Duster hybrid 155 is now available from £23,345, while Bigster hybrid 155 now starts from £26,715.

There’s good news for Britain’s hard-working businesses, too, with Duster Cargo hybrid 155 now priced from £22,495 ex VAT.

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Both SUVs continue to be offered in a choice of Expression, Journey and rugged Extreme trim levels, making it easy for customers to choose the version that suits them best.

Expression gives drivers everything they need day to day, Journey adds more comfort and convenience, while Extreme brings a tougher look and feel for those who like to get out there and make the most of the weekend.

As a result of these changes, the jump into hybrid power is now smaller than before, while Dacia’s straightforward approach stays exactly the same: everything drivers need, and nothing they don’t.

Lina Ribeiro, Dacia brand director for the UK, said: “Dacia has always been about giving customers the best value for money, and these new prices make Duster and Bigster hybrid 155 even more appealing.

“At a time when people are watching what they spend, cutting prices by this much makes a real difference.

“It means even more customers can enjoy hybrid power, strong equipment levels and the space and versatility these two SUVs offer.”

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The video, captured by local wagon driver Dave Henderson, shows the vehicle turning round after travelling south in the northbound carriageway near the Swarland junction in Northumberland.

Fortunately, nobody was injured and the vehicle was able to safely turn around. Local councillors have said the footage shows the urgent need for safety improvements on the notorious stretch of road through the county.

Coun Guy Renner-Thompson, who represents the Bamburgh ward and is a cabinet member at the county council, said: “This is just further evidence that this road isn’t fit for purpose.

“It is being added to the dossier the Northumberland A1 Road Safety Alliance campaign group are producing and it will also be seen by officers at the council. It is further proof for the Government that this road needs sorting out.”

Much of the A1 in Northumberland remains single carriageway, and campaigners have been calling for these to be made dual carriageway for decades.

However, there are some short sections – including the stretch that passes Swarland – that are already dualled.

There is now concern that many junctions on these sections are no longer fit for purpose and require significant upgrades. There has been a rise in the level of traffic using the road in recent years with the north Northumberland Coast becoming a particular hotspot for tourists.

Council leader Glen Sanderson has been calling consistently for the entire route to be upgraded to dual carriageway. He feels the poor junctions and repeated changes from single to dual carriageway cause confusion for visitors.

He said: “It’s a shocking video. Because of the way the A1 is and the amount of people that are using it, people simply get confused by the junctions.

“It is that confusion that often leads to tragedy. It needs a total rethink.

“People would normally think that this main route ought to be of to quality and safety standards that don’t cause confusion. I have great sympathy with people who get confused.”

The campaign to get the road dualled has been reignited in recent weeks after a number of serious accidents this year that have resulted in several people losing their lives. The NASA has started a parliamentary petition that has been signed by almost 3,600 people.

Coun Sanderson added: “I want to keep the campaign on. Every bit of evidence helps to build the case for action that is desperately needed.

“Saying it is not needed is misguided and very wrong. I am not going to accept this situation, and we will continue to fight and express our views on behalf of all the people involved and those who have suffered.”

The Government has committed to carrying out safety improvements on the A1 in Northumberland as part of the Road Investment Strategy (RIS). However, the dual carriageway scheme is currently off the table, with officials deeming the £500 million cost as too expensive.

Durham County Council intends to appoint a contractor to demolish the redundant Fyndoune Community College buildings in Sacriston before the site is levelled, graded and reinstated.

Planning documents state that preparation work is due to begin this month, with the demolition of Block 3 and Blocks 5, 6 and 7 planned as part of the first phase.

Block 1 is expected to remain in use for longer and is due to be demolished in summer 2028, once existing building users have vacated.

The work will include removing asbestos from the buildings before they are demolished.

Fyndoune Community College closed in April 2021 following a merger with Durham Community Business College for Technology and Enterprise in Ushaw Moor.

The former college site is now at the centre of plans for a new specialist school, providing 180 additional places for children with special educational needs.

The proposed facility would cater for pupils with special educational and medical needs, including secondary school-aged children who require additional support.

Durham County Council has submitted a pre-application for the wider redevelopment, with letters due to be delivered to nearby residents from Monday, August 17.

The council said the new school would provide a “dedicated, high-quality specialist educational curriculum” designed to prepare young people for life in their local communities.

It also said the development would provide benefits for the wider Sacriston community, with residents able to access indoor and outdoor facilities.

Further details of the proposed new school and its facilities are expected to emerge as the redevelopment progresses.

The Greater Anglia train derailed at 2.12pm on Friday south of Wickford railway station in Essex, British Transport Police said.

BTP said officers, paramedics and firefighters are at the scene after reports that the rear carriages of the train have derailed in an upright position.

No injuries have currently been reported.

No trains between Wickford and Southend Victoria are expected until further notice, National Rail says on its website.

It says: “There is a problem currently under investigation between Wickford and Southend Victoria. This has closed all lines running between these stations.

“As a result, Greater Anglia trains running between London Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria will be cancelled in full. You can use alternative services to travel between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield. You are advised not to travel between Shenfield and Southend Victoria as services are unable to run.

“Please note, the Southminster branch line is also affected by this issue, and services are currently unable to run between Wickford and Southminster.

“Major disruption is expected to continue until further notice.”

By ELINA SHIRAZI, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER

Published: 21:19 BST, 14 August 2026 | Updated: 21:40 BST, 14 August 2026

President Donald Trump just announced plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory following the defeat of Iran.

‘Pretty soon, I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States… we have the blockade… no ships get through unless we want them to,’ Trump declared at a Garden City rally.

Trump told a crowd of law enforcement officers that the war in the Middle East is still not over.

‘We have to make a little journey to the Middle East because we have to put out a potential disaster, a potential very big fire, a fire like you’ve never seen. We can’t let Iran keep going,’ Trump said during the rally, adding once again that they can ‘never have a nuclear weapon.’ 

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Before the US launched military strikes against Iran earlier this year, the Strait of Hormuz served as a vital shipping lane for global oil. 

Since the onset of the conflict, maritime traffic through the narrow waterway has ground to a near-total halt, making transit rights a key sticking point in US–Iran peace negotiations. 

Speaking to supporters on Long Island, the president called for economic resilience amid the war with Iran, urging Americans to accept temporary gas price surges as a matter of national priority. 

‘For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a… it’s the number one state sponsor of terror in the world… We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said in an address at the Nassau County Policy Academy.

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Tehran has since walked away from Trump’s peace deal, attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil

Trump delivers remarks at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence on August 14, 2026 in Garden City, New York

President Donald Trump just announced plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory following the defeat of Iran

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While violence has declined since the signing of a preliminary US-Iran deal in June and the Lebanon-Israel agreement, Lebanon continues to report intermittent Israeli strikes and artillery shelling on the south

‘Remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4,’ the president continued, saying, he will ‘never apologize.’

‘I did the right thing,’ he exclaimed. 

The national average gas price stands at more than $4 per gallon in the US.

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The rising prices have added inflationary pressure on families as Trump prepares for midterm elections in less than three months.

Iran plans to ramp up aggression in the Strait of Hormuz to ratchet pressure on Trump ahead of the midterm elections, according to Tehran insiders and foreign policy experts.

Trump conceded last week that the US was now ‘low-keying’ peace talks with Iran after a ceasefire deal collapsed.

Former US diplomat Jonathan Wachtel told the Daily Mail that ‘Iranian leaders carefully study both American military capabilities and political calendars.’

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Two Iranian sources familiar with Tehran’s planning confirmed that the midterms are a key pressure point that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will hope to exploit.

Retired General Jack Keane said that Iran is gambling on Trump being unwilling to restart major military action ahead of November. 

‘My gut feel is that they’re likely going to get more aggressive because they don’t believe the President will do much prior to the midterms in terms of military actions,’ Keane told Fox News.

Wachtel agreed ‘this is a high–risk gamble,’ adding that ‘major confrontations often begin when one side misunderstands the other’s willingness to respond.’ 

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In this fourth part in our series on how the UK has changed in the past 25 years, we look at health.

Life expectancy and illness

Michael Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Demography, London School of Economics

A good way to follow the health of a nation is to glance at what is known as period life-expectancy. This calculates how long a person born today would live if the current death rates remained exactly the same for the rest of their life. This had two major turning points in the UK over the period: a marked slowdown in improvements from around 2011, and a sharp, historically unprecedented fall in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The slowdown in improvement from the early 2010s was part of a wider pattern across high-income countries. The UK and the other five largest of these nations, including France, Germany and Italy, experienced similar stagnation, although the UK’s was somewhat more persistent.

How has the UK changed since the start of the century? From Blair to Burnham, from the dotcom era to AI agents, time has certainly not stood still. In this six-part series, a team of some 35 experts look at everything from defence spending to species populations to the rise of populism to try and make sense of the intervening years.

The graph below also shows that contrary to frequent claims that the UK’s mortality performance is uniquely poor, its period life-expectancy gains were broadly similar to these comparator countries and the OECD average between 2000 and 2024. For example, France’s period life-expectancy increased by an annual average of only four days more than UK over that time.

Changing life-expectancy

The most dramatic disruption occurred with the COVID 19 pandemic. The UK’s 179,000 COVID-related deaths in 2020–21 represented the largest mortality shock since the second world war. As it turned out, the nation’s mortality rate peaked in 2020 and has fallen each year since. By 2024 it had returned to levels close to 2019, the lowest ever, and we’ve seen a similar trend across western Europe.

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Britain’s quarter century: shrinking families, ethnic tensions and queer winners and losers

The long-term implications of the pandemic remain uncertain, but they are potentially severe and likely to affect all groups of society. Many people have experienced life-changing effects from long COVID. Evidence from earlier pandemics, including the 1918–19 influenza pandemic, also suggests that babies in their mothers’ wombs may have experienced long-term negative health effects from exposure to the virus.

Causes of death

Underlying these mortality trends in the UK are shifts in the major causes of death. In 2024 cardiovascular disease (26%), cancer (26%), respiratory disease (12%) and dementia (9%) accounted for three quarters of deaths in England.

Changes in cause of death classification make it difficult to see whether these have changed long term. But the early 2000s saw rapid declines in cardiovascular mortality, for instance, driven by improvements in treatment, prevention and reductions in smoking.

However, these gains have slowed, and since 2019 progress in reducing cardiovascular deaths has stalled. This reflects a combination of fewer medical breakthroughs in related chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and rising pressures on the health and social care systems.

More generally, changing risk factors will be important for the future. We’re smoking much less today, from 26% of adults in 2001 to 11% in 2023, which reduces the scope for further mortality gains from tobacco controls.

In contrast, obesity has become the top lifestyle danger, with the proportion of adults classified as obese in England rising from 20% in 2001 to 30% in 2024. These trends imply a growing future burden of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and also certain cancers, with long lag times before the full effects are observed.

This rise in obesity will also be contributing to rising levels of non-fatal but disabling conditions. As many as 26% of adults report chronic pain, and half of those report high-impact pain (meaning long-term pain that severely limits your ability to function in daily life). Low back pain is now the leading cause of years lived with disability in the UK, mirroring global trends.

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Mental disorders are rising steadily, with common mental health conditions increasing from 17.5% in 2000 to 22.6% in 2023-24 among working age adults. The rates are higher among younger people: 26% among 16-24 year olds compared with 10% among those aged 75 and over.

There also appears to have been an increase in poor health in general. Witness the fact that healthy life expectancy in England increased modestly between 2000–02 and 2017–18 (the last period that did not include the COVID-19 pandemic), but only around half of additional years gained were spent in good health.

While mortality improvements are likely to resume, they may do so at a slower pace than in the late 20th century. The ageing population, rising obesity and worsening health among younger people all pose risks. The prolonged deterioration in US mortality linked to drug related deaths and “deaths of despair” also illustrates that you certainly can’t assume progress will continue. The UK’s future health will depend on its ability to address chronic disease, reduce risks like obesity and strengthen its ability to respond to future shocks.

Eating and drinking habits

David Dearlove, Principal Researcher, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

Jurin Katayama, Analyst, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

Lydia Leon, Senior Mission Manager, Healthy Life Mission, Nesta

In 2001 meal deals were a novelty, phones had buttons, and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was a year-old watchdog. Twenty-five years on, Britain’s relationship with food is very different, with big changes in the types of food available and how we buy it, as well as how it is promoted and regulated.

When it comes to how people buy their food, supermarkets still dominate. The retail landscape has been disrupted by the rise of discounters like Aldi and Lidl, whose market share climbed from a mere 3% in 2002 to about 14% by 2021. But given that large supermarkets continue to supply over 80% of our average daily calorie intake, their influence over public health remains profound.

Food bought outside of the home has seen large changes. Across Great Britain, the density of fast food outlets – meaning per head of the population – rose by 36% between 2011 and 2024, outpacing the 17% growth in supermarket density. This supply surge reflects shifting demand – while only a quarter of UK adults ate out once a week or more between 2008 and 2012, in 2021 this rose to over 60%.

Unfortunately, food prepared out of home rarely is the healthy choice. Most of these meals exceed the recommended calorie intake for an eating occasion, and about 20% of meals contain over half the total recommended daily intake.

This physical saturation is mirrored in our digital lives, as ordering food to our door has become easier than ever. When Just Eat launched in 2001, ordering food online was a novelty. Today, platforms such as Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats connect us to thousands of takeaways at any hour, with their market worth £13.9 billion (2024). Online grocery shopping has also risen, from barely existing in 2001 to now making up around 12% of the grocery market.

Ever more marketing

The way food is bought and promoted has not only gone more digital, but is now dominated by pervasive marketing and personalised nudges. Outdoor food and drink advertising, covering everything from billboards to train carriages, has more than tripled in real terms over the past two decades, now accounting for £590 million in advertising-spend a year. The rise of apps and loyalty schemes has also expanded the ways customers can be reached, with regular notifications and time-limited “special” deals designed to make us order more often and in larger amounts.

Of the £2.4 billion spent on UK food advertising in 2024, investment in nutritious alternatives remains negligible. For instance, while advertising focusing on fruit and vegetables now accounts for less than 5% of traditional food and non-alcoholic drink advertising budgets, unhealthy foods account for closer to a third.

There has also been a shift in the regulatory landscape. We’ve seen a gradual move away from voluntary schemes such as Public Health England’s calorie, salt and sugar reduction programmes towards more interventionist policies, including the 2018 Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which incentivised many manufacturers to reduce sugar content to avoid charges.

Expanding on this, in 2025 the government announced the introduction of the healthy food standard policy. This will require large food businesses, including supermarkets, to report on the healthiness of their sales, and meet mandatory targets for improvement. Yet while the regulatory framework is improving, further intervention will be necessary to get the nation to eat more healthily.

Alcohol and drug use

Ian Hamilton, Honorary Fellow (Associate Professor) in Addiction at the University of York

Drugs, like fashion, change over time. Since the millennium, for instance, we have seen a surge in cocaine use. Once regarded as an expensive drug used by the elite, it is now more affordable than ever and more potent, which explains its greater popularity.

This has been facilitated by increased global supply and organised crime groups able to transport and distribute the drug effectively. Unfortunately, rising use has been accompanied by an equally rapid increase in cocaine fatalities, with nearly 1,300 in 2024 in England and Wales alone.

The last 25 years has witnessed the emergence of synthetic drugs, particularly synthetic opiates, which are much more potent than the traditional organic opiates such as heroin. Like cocaine, the rise in synthetic drugs has seen an increase in drug-related deaths, with the UK having the highest mortality rate in Europe.

Another group of synthetic drugs that have emerged are novel psychoactive substances, also known as legal highs, even though they were banned a decade ago. Examples include spice, a synthetic form of cannabis, and the stimulant referred to as monkey dust.

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As with all drugs, the negative consequences of using them are not experienced equally. It is the vulnerable, poor, homeless and living in the most deprived areas of the UK that are more likely to die or suffer poor health from using these drugs. Synthetic drugs have caused havoc and misery in prisons and among rough-sleeping populations.

Drug use in the UK 2000-25

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Cannabis remains the most widely used illicit drug in the UK. Adult use has remained stable over the last 25 years. However, this disguises the trend of falling cannabis use for young people (aged 16-24 years) since 2020.

Alcohol and the internet

Without a doubt, the advent of the internet has directly and indirectly shaped which drugs are widely used and those that are not. For example the data shows that since the millennium, young people have shunned alcohol.

This is thought to be due in part to young people not wanting to be seen to be intoxicated or behaving badly because of drinking on social media. In parallel, this cohort are more health conscious and keen to adopt a healthy lifestyle which doesn’t include alcohol.

Over the same period, consumption of alcohol by adults has remained relatively stable. Older adults are now more likely to drink than their younger counterparts: 84% of those aged 55-64 years old compared to 65% aged 16-24 years old.

Alcohol-related deaths in the UK

The internet has also opened access to drugs through platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram. People can simply browse dealer menus via Instagram, for example, or message a Telegram bot, and have drugs brought to their door within the hour.

What hasn’t changed is drug policy. Successive governments have stuck with the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, despite the fact that applying a 50-year-old policy to contemporary patterns of drug use is a terrible mismatch. When this legislation was enacted many of the most widely used drugs today didn’t exist. There is also nowadays a consensus that drug use should be framed by health rather than penal policy.

Yet there is no political appetite for policy change, just the continued mantra of getting tough on drugs by trying to disrupt supply and distribution. In contrast, organised crime is innovative and adaptable.

Sexual behaviour

Soazig Clifton, Academic Director for Britain’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), University College London

By the early 2000s Britain had experienced decades of social and demographic change dating back to the second world war. Marriage rates had fallen, people were having children later and in smaller numbers, and family structures had become more diverse.

These changes were accompanied by increasingly liberal attitudes towards sexuality. Same-sex relationships were becoming more socially accepted. Younger generations were having sex earlier and marrying or cohabiting later than previous generations.

Public concern had also shifted. The widespread fears around HIV/Aids that had characterised the 1980s and early 1990s were receding. Attention had turned to the UK’s rate of teenage pregnancy, which was among the highest in Europe, and rising levels of chlamydia and other sexually transmitted infections.

The best evidence on population trends in sexual behaviour comes from Britain’s National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), one of the largest scientific studies of sexual behaviour in the world. Conducted approximately every decade since 1990, Natsal provides representative snapshots of the population, offering a unique window into Britain’s changing sex lives.

The most recent published survey, Natsal-3 (2010-12), documented substantial changes in women’s sexuality during the 2000s. Women reported higher numbers of sexual partners and more same-sex experiences, with one in six women reporting sexual experience with another woman.

Vaginal and oral sex remained the core of the heterosexual sexual repertoire since the first survey in 1990. However, the 1990s and 2000s also saw increases in heterosexual anal sex, reported by around one in six people by 2010-12.

Yet despite increasing diversity in sexual behaviour, Natsal identified another trend: people were having sex less often. Among 16-44-year-olds in 2010-12, the median frequency of sex was three times per month, compared to four times in the two previous surveys.

Where are we now?

The latest Natsal data, collected between 2022 and 2024, will be published later this year. It will provide the first comprehensive picture of Britain’s sex lives after a decade shaped by economic uncertainty, the COVID pandemic and the growing digitalisation of everyday life. For the first time, Natsal-4 collected data on online sexual activities, including pornography use and sexting, as well as expanding measures of gender to include transgender and non-binary identities.

Other data sources offer clues about what we might find. Natsal-COVID, an online survey conducted during the pandemic, suggested further declines in sexual frequency and potential reductions in behaviour associated with sexually transmitted infections (although these comparisons are limited by methodological differences).

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Meanwhile, data from the Office for National Statistics shows increasing numbers of people identify as LGBTQ+. Research with adolescents in Britain and other European countries has also shown declines in sexual experience. These changes sit alongside broader shifts in young people’s lives, including declining rates of smoking and drinking, rising levels of poor mental health and high rates of loneliness, more time online and less time socialising face-to-face.

Whatever Natsal-4 reveals, the picture will probably keep evolving. Societal change and new technologies including AI are likely to shape our sexual behaviour and intimate relationships in ways we cannot yet predict.

Mental health

Kevin Stone, Associate Dean for Partnerships and Business Development (Health and Social Care), University of South Wales

Sarah Vicary, Professor of Social Work and Mental Health, The Open University

In 2000, care in the community was gaining ground, but provision remained uneven. Although the closure of long-stay psychiatric hospitals had reshaped the system, hospital admission remained a dominant response to people experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Patient voices were also beginning to emerge more strongly against a backdrop of stigma, with growing demands for better quality care in both primary and secondary services.

Since then, we have seen significant changes in attitudes and responses to mental health needs. Mental health is no longer seen simply as a private struggle that should be hidden, but increasingly as a public health concern.

Awareness-raising has helped to create a culture in which speaking about mental health is more acceptable than it was in 2001, and more actively encouraged everywhere from workplaces to schools to the home. For those with severe diagnoses, the shift away from institutional care before the 1990s towards community-based support has also been clear.

Nonetheless, we are seeing more children and young people reporting adverse childhood experiences, trauma and neglect, all of which can lead to significant mental health needs. We also continue to see high numbers of detentions under mental health legislation involving people in severe mental distress, with a disproportionate impact on men from ethnic minority groups.

Mental health-related absences from work continue to be a problem – stress, depression and anxiety cost 22 million working days in 2024/25. Societal barriers like stigma still prevent many people from discussing their declining mental health or seeking help early, which undermines effective prevention.

The transformation

When it comes to raising awareness, anti-stigma campaigns such as Time to Change, led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, alongside World Health Organization initiatives, have contributed to changing behaviour and attitudes. World Mental Health Day each October and campaigns led by YoungMinds have helped reinforce this message. The same goes for public figures and people with lived experience, such as Stormzy and Davina McCall.

We have seen the growth of mental health first aiders in the workplace, mental health champions in schools, and helplines offering non-judgmental listening and support.

The principle that mental health should be valued as highly as physical health (known as parity of esteem), has increasingly shaped NHS policy. The NHS commissioners who oversee health services within particular areas have reinvented mental health services to place greater emphasis on community-based support and treatment.

This has included dedicated mental health workers in emergency departments, and doctors connecting patients to non-medical community activities to help improve their outlook (this is known as social prescribing). Access to psychological therapies has also improved and is now recognised through NHS Talking Therapies in GP practices and primary care settings.

The authorities are also giving more attention to societal factors affecting people’s mental health. When patients come to GPs with anxiety triggered by things like debt or poor housing, they are expected to refer them to a link worker to help overcome these problems. It’s now increasingly recognised that responses to mental health needs should never be about medication alone. There has also been growing recognition of the role played by family members, nearest relatives, friends and unpaid carers.

Yet NHS services are still too often forced to respond to crisis rather than prevent it. Funding pressures and workforce shortages have combined with the increased demand for mental health services to place the system under growing strain.

As well as addressing this, the wider challenge is to build a society and system that values prevention, compassion, choice, dignity and timely support. That way, mental health won’t just be protected in moments of crisis, but throughout the course of everyday life.

For you: more from the Britain’s quarter century series:

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