Thousands of police officers put themselves at risk on our behalf day in, day out. Their example shines through, especially when you remember that some are killed and many thousands more are injured in the line of duty every year.

Yet the bravery and dedication of these individuals cannot hide the disturbing contrast between the best of British policing and the very worst – failures exposed in a series of recent scandals.

This is why, supported by the Home Office, the independent Police Leadership Commission has concluded we need a root-and-branch overhaul of recruitment, training, appraisal and promotion. 

And that nowhere do we need more radical change than at the very top.

I thought, as a former Home Secretary, that I knew a great deal about policing. Yet I have learnt more co-chairing the nine months of this inquiry than I ever did in the nearly four years I was at the Home Office. 

I have learnt, for example, about the way that officers at all levels have lost confidence in those above them.

In a recent survey, only 16 per cent of constables felt comfortable discussing problems and challenging those above them. Yet the demands we put upon them continue to grow.

Constables are forced to step up as ‘temporary sergeants’ so frequently that the practice is now endemic.

The former home secretary believes that radical change is needed ‘at the very top’ of the police

Sergeants are crucial front-line leaders. Yet those constables who wish to make this important move permanent face an utterly outdated examination and qualification system – which means that nearly 50 per cent of candidates drop out before qualifying. 

Then there is the collection and use of police data, which is not quite in the Stone Age but not far off.

However, it is at the very highest level in policing that we’ve found the most troubling evidence of failure, particularly when it comes to promotions.

I don’t use the word ‘nepotism’ lightly because it implies deep-seated preferential treatment for those close to the senior officers making the decisions. 

But I’m afraid it’s true. We took detailed evidence from round-table discussions.

We had 484 submissions for our ‘call to evidence’, and nearly 1,800 sergeants and inspectors responded to a survey.

And the message was the same: there is a complete lack of confidence in the promotion ladder, and a reluctance to step on to the next rung of leadership.

The ‘pipeline’ of those coming through to senior grades is woefully inadequate. Our recommendations aim to encourage and support high-quality potential leaders to come forward.

To do so, they need to be confident that they will receive support, and, at the same time, that they will be held to account. 

The decisions they make will often be challenged. This is why top leadership must be trusted to have the ethics and decency to inspire those working for them.

Sadly, the evidence – as so many incidents have highlighted – leaves much to be desired. 

From a cohort of 43 chief constables and a further 220 senior officers, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has, since 2018, received 107 referrals involving chief officers, leading to 78 investigations.

Eight chief constables or former chief constables are under investigation or awaiting disciplinary proceedings.

Our findings endorse the Government’s police reform white paper that the new national police service should incorporate measures that provide a transparent selection and appointment process. 

You can rest assured that our 27 recommendations deal directly with the shocking events at the Charing Cross custody suite in London – which has resulted in ten officers being dismissed for thuggish behaviour.

Let us celebrate those who are deeply committed and do take pride in their job. And let us ensure, too, that this top-to-bottom reset creates the new national police service that the people of these islands deserve.

We need to know a revitalised force will be there alongside us in our neighbourhoods and homes – giving us confidence and keeping us safe.

By ABUL TAHER FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

Published: 00:30 BST, 5 July 2026 | Updated: 01:42 BST, 5 July 2026

Bridget Phillipson has been accused by a former neighbour of ‘exaggerating’ her claims of a poverty-stricken upbringing.

The intervention comes after the Education Secretary described The Mail on Sunday’s revelation that her family made a 900 per cent profit selling their council house, as a ‘manufactured smear’.

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Ms Phillipson, 42, told Times Radio their property in Washington, Tyne and Wear, was in a ‘terrible state,’ with no upstairs heating and rotten windows when her mother bought it under right-to-buy in 1990.

She added: ‘There was no prospect of there being any improvement in our living conditions unless [my mother Clare] took that decision to buy our home because of a sustained failure to invest in that house.’

But others who lived on the street at the time have disputed Ms Phillipson’s account, insisting the council houses were properly heated and well maintained.

Tracey Morgan, 61, has lived a few doors from the former Phillipson home since 1989, a year before the family bought their council house. 

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‘The upstairs rooms had electric bar heaters, and downstairs rooms had radiators heated by back boilers,’ she said.

Coal-fired back boilers provided hot water for washing and central heating. Ms Morgan also said she could not recall rotting windows on the street, saying there were sash windows at the time.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson walking to No 10 for a cabinet meeting on June 9, 2026

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This is the terraced home in Washington, Tyne and Wear where the Bridget Phillipson grew up

However, she said the local Sunderland Council did maintain the properties, and in 1996, all council tenants were moved out of their homes for four months so that the houses could be renovated.

Ms Morgan added: ‘I remember seeing Clare and her daughter, I thought they looked comfortable, and not poor.’

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she was sceptical of the minister’s claims.

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‘I think a lot of this stuff is being fabricated. These are old houses, but as long as I’ve lived here it’s been fine,’ she said.

Clare Phillipson is believed to have moved to the street in the early 1980s, with her daughter living there since her birth in 1983. 

Ms Phillipson bought a former council house three doors away in 2006 with her then partner, now husband, Lawrence Dimery, before the couple sold it in 2016.

Her mother sold the family home in 2023 and is thought to live eight miles away, close to her daughter’s constituency home.

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Last night a source close to Bridget Phillipson said: ‘Claims by apparent neighbours as to the state of their homes in the 90s have no bearing on the state of Bridget’s mum’s home in the 1980s.’ 

Mr Ward-Jackson argued the UK’s “economic problem is, at its core, a risk-aversion crisis,” with capital gains tax relief “one of the few mechanisms that helps correct” UK founders’ disadvantage compared to their American counterparts, acknowledging “that investing or building a start-up means taking a huge risk and waiting years for a return”.

The business has been family-run for more than 100 years and its farm shop opened in 2024

A Cambridgeshire ‘farm to fork’ business has taken the crown for the best farm shop in the region in the 2026 Velvet Food & Drink Awards. Willow Grange’s farm shop in Chittering has received the accolade, beating competition across Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

Willow Grange has been family-run for more than 100 years, with its farm shop opening in October 2024. The business operates as a working farm and is also a wedding venue, can host events and has accommodation.

The business was put forward for the award last year and Michelle Alston, the judge, said Willow Grange had made “significant improvements” since its previous nomination. She said it was clear to her that “a lot of care and investment has gone into the farm shop”.

The judge added: “This was very evident as soon as I stepped inside. The shop floor was spotlessly clean and merchandised to a high standard. The product range has increased significantly and is now offering customers a great choice of high-quality products.

“The staff were excellent; they seemed well-trained in customer service and happy to be there. One staff member behind the cheese counter was a real highlight; they acknowledged me immediately, were very friendly, and their product knowledge was excellent, a real credit to their store!”

Judge Alston said she felt Willow Grange had “the best value for money”. This component combined with the “excellent staff and increased product range” set the farm shop ahead of the competition.

Reacting to the news, Kirsty Blackwell, 28, assistant manager for Willow Grange said: “We have had a lot of growth and expansion in the business and we still have lots to come this year. It was really nice that she had seen that. We were really pleased that it had been recognised and all of our hard work had been worth it.”

The farm shop has a butchers counter which is stocked with its own Hereford cows. Ms Blackwell said what makes the farm shop so special is that they “really love to support local businesses” and they have the opportunity to show customers the “farm to fork process”.

She added: “They [customers] can see exactly where the cows are living, how they are looked after and really know exactly where their meat is coming from.”

The farm offers a range of items including an alcohol selection, crisps, confectionary, cheese counter, deli counter, fresh produce and coffee from local roasters including its own exclusive blend.

It also has a home and gift section where visitors can find minimal refill products, candles, a pet section and terrariums which are made by a local lady in Ely.

MOUNT VERNON, Va. (AP) — The people who were about to become United States citizens sat in folding chairs on George Washington’s lawn at Mount Vernon on Saturday, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence.

The sun beat down and the well-dressed crowd was a flutter of paddle fans stamped with American flags. Their families clung to the shade of the trees on either side, where one woman had two American flags stuck through her ponytail.

“Well, good morning, everybody,” said Anne Neal Petri, the regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

“Good morning!” an excited crowd returned.

“And Happy Birthday, United States of America!” exclaimed Petri.

There were 150 people from 50 globe-spanning countries sitting in front of the small stage as they prepared to be sworn in as U.S. citizens on the July Fourth holiday and America’s 250th birthday. Among them was U.S. Marine Sgt. Diakaria Sangare from Guinea, who attended in his pressed Dress Blue uniform with three medals pinned to his left breast.

Sangare had served two deployments, and, like all assembled, had gone through the long citizenship process: The test, interviews, green cards and biometrics. Others in the crowd, it was said, came from countries bathed in violence. Some fled persecution.

After a speech about Washington, the crowd was asked to rise for the national anthem.

They did. Their hats came off and their hands covered their hearts. The paddle fans calmed.

The singer belted the words: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there” — as Sangare held his right hand in a rigid salute, his face sober.

As the song concluded, the soon-to-be citizens clapped and returned to their seats, while another speaker asked them to stand and remain standing when their country was called.

“Albania.”

A woman in the front row with long black hair rose with a broad grin, a small U.S. flag in her hand.

“Bangladesh.”

A man in a black shirt stood. The Albanian woman, looking back, beamed at him.

It went on for 50 countries, through China and El Salvador and Iraq and Mongolia, as people stood, sometimes smiling, sometimes sedate.

At “Morocco,” a man in the back thrusts his fists in the air in support. A young boy looked up at him and then did the same, a little flag in his fist.

Then the crowd, with hands raised, recited an Oath of Allegiance, not so different from the oath Washington signed in 1778.

“Congratulations,” they were told. “You just became U.S. citizens.”

There was applause and laughter, then the Pledge of Allegiance. Sangare, his hand now over his heart, closed his eyes for a moment.

Nearby stood a tulip poplar tree, planted at Washington’s direction 250 years ago, that had lived through America’s history.

The next speaker, historian Douglas Bradburn, pointed it out in his speech before the day’s special guest.

“All the stories that are part of you, now become American stories,” said Bradburn. “When people ask me what are American people like, I now can talk about you, and your stories.”

“The second side of that is that, now, all America’s stories, and our history, are your stories. The father of your country is George Washington.”

The first president, it turned out, was the next speaker.

As he was introduced, the re-enactor stood by a massive draped American flag, a sword scabbard on his hip. Then he donned the stage, doffed his cap to the audience, and began to speak.

“Today the name of ‘American’ belongs to you every bit as much as it does to me,” he said. He spoke to their arduous journeys to this point and their histories, now merged with America.

“So, my fellow Americans, to you, I say simply: ‘Welcome home’.”

Afterward, Sangare, the U.S. Marine, posed for a portrait, hands clasped in front of him, holding the American flag paddle fan, his Marine cap slightly askew.

“I just became a United States citizen,” he said, his emotions pushing out in an earnest smile.

____ Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas.

Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive ‘mansion tax’ regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.

It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.

Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves‘s so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.

In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour‘s ‘politics of envy’.

It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy ‘wealth taxes’ on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.

Experts predict that forcing families to pay the mansion tax will raise only a relatively modest £250 million a year – but it could cause extra hardship for striving families in a cost–of–living crisis, damage a fragile property market and pave the way for greater tax raids in the future.

Pictured: A £1.6million home in south-west London. Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive ‘mansion tax’ regime

Under Ms Reeves’s current plans, owners of homes worth more than £2 million will be hit with what’s officially called the ‘high value council tax surcharge’ of at least £2,500 a year – rising in bands to £7,500 for properties worth more than £5 million.

Around 180,000 properties would be affected by these plans, but Michael Bruce, CEO of estate agent Purplebricks, said: ‘An estimated 150,000 additional households could be caught if the threshold falls to £1.5 million. If the Government wants growth, this is the wrong place to start.

‘Housing is one of the UK’s biggest economic drivers, yet the market is already fragile. Policies that discourage people from moving don’t just affect homeowners – they hit buyers, sellers, tradespeople, retailers and the wider economy.’

The biggest pressure for new taxes on homes predominantly situated in the South is coming from Labour MPs in the party’s former heartlands in the Midlands and North.

The Unite union – historically Labour’s largest financial backer – also called for Mr Burnham to introduce wealth taxes when, as widely expected, he replaces Sir Keir Starmer in No10 on July 20.

General secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘We must bite the bullet on a wealth tax to ensure our public services are protected… The choice should not be about whether to defend our nation or pay for schools, hospitals or roads.

‘We must put workers and communities first.’

Last week Mr Burnham strongly hinted that he was planning to increase taxes, saying that while he would ‘stick by the manifesto promises’ not to hike income tax, VAT and national insurance, there was ‘some room for movement on tax’.

Pictured: A £1.85million home in south-west London which could higher taxes under Burnham

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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour’s ‘politics of envy’

He vowed to cut business rates for pubs, music venues and independent high street shops, funded by higher levies on warehouse operators such as Amazon and on owners of empty high street properties.

Mrs Badenoch said: ‘Andy Burnham is making the same mistakes Keir Starmer made, putting up taxes, hitting working families, when we should be cutting spending. Labour can change their leader but the problem will always be the Labour Party and its politics of envy.’

The spectre of the mansion tax has already hit the property market, reducing the number of homes for sale above £2 million, which in turn has ramped up the pressure for a lower threshold.

It is said that original plans for a mansion tax set the threshold at £1.5 million, but it was raised amid fears that Labour voters and public sector professionals would be hit.

Meanwhile, the Labour Red Wall Group of more than 40 MPs has called for council tax and stamp duty to be replaced with a flat annual levy of 0.48 per cent of a property’s value– a plan Mr Burnham has previously endorsed. It would mean a property valued at £500,000 would be taxed at £2,400 a year

Such a system would mean Southerners paying £1,650 a year on average, while Northerners would have bills of just £600 a year, analysis by the Daily Telegraph found.

Polling by Lord Ashcroft, reported on Page 10 of today’s MoS, reveals that voters regard Mr Burnham as more Left–wing than Sir Keir by a margin of nearly two to one.

The existing four-storey building would be extended with two additional floors

A four-storey office building in a Cambridgeshire city could be extended to make way for new apartments. MJS Construction LTD has submitted an application to Peterborough City Council to extend and convert the “prestigious” Monkstone House into residential apartments.

If approved, the proposal, on City Road, Peterborough, would see the existing building extended with two additional floors to create 65 residential apartments. The upward extension would deliver 22 residential apartments and the conversion of the existing building would deliver a further 43.

The plans indicate there would be 58 two-bedroom apartments and seven one-bedroom units. The applicant said it would deliver “well designed residential accommodation” within a “highly sustainable city-centre location”.

A planning statement reads: “While the proposed development will result in a building containing multiple dwellinghouses, the overall height of the building will remain below 18 metres and will not exceed 7 storeys.”

The proposals would incorporate secure and convenient cycle parking provision for future occupiers.

The planning statement continues: “The scheme makes effective use of previously developed land and represents an appropriate form of intensification, making a positive contribution to the delivery of housing without altering the established building footprint or access arrangements.”

The site is located within Flood Zone 1, which represents an area of lowest flood risk. The applicant said the change of use from office accommodation to residential is not expected to result in an increase in traffic generation.

The developer described Monkstone House as a “prestigious and prominent office building well-located in the heart of the city centre and major commercial district”.

A magnificent cathedral. England’s oldest railway. Miles of beautiful dales and coastline.

And, tucked quietly into its villages, fields, and suburbs, some of the most entertainingly strange place names in the entire country.

Here is a tour of the best of them:

Pity Me

Starting with the most famous. Pity Me is a suburban village just north of Durham city, sitting between Framwellgate Moor and Newton Hall.

The name, according to the Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names, is most likely “a whimsical name bestowed in the 19th century on a place considered desolate, exposed or difficult to cultivate.”

Other theories link it to the Old French “petit mere,” meaning small lake, or to a boggy area known as Pithead Mere.

Whatever the origin, residents have been explaining their postcode to puzzled relatives for generations.

Pity Me, County Durham. (Image: Stuart Boulton)

Fanny Barks

Near Piercebridge, just west of Darlington, sits Fanny Barks – a small area of woodland that has been raising eyebrows and delighting map-readers for centuries.

The name is entirely innocent: “barks” is a dialect word for birch trees, and “Fanny” is simply a personal name that was once common enough to attach itself to bits of countryside.

No Place

Close to Stanley and within walking distance of Beamish Museum, No Place is a small former mining village that may be the most philosophically troubling address in England.

The origins of the name are genuinely disputed.

Some historians believe it is a shortening of “North Place” or “Near Place.”

Others suggest the original houses stood on a boundary between two parishes, neither of which would claim them — so they ended up in No Place.

There is also a theory that it was a deliberate literary joke on the Greek word for Utopia, which translates as “no place.”

Whatever the reason, No Place has its own pub – the Beamish Mary Inn, dating from 1897 – and a tin chapel.

Which is more than some places have.

No Place is a village with a name that still baffles to this day. (Image: GOOGLE)

Deaf Hill

East of Trimdon Colliery in the east of the county, Deaf Hill is a village whose name has puzzled local historians for years.

The most macabre theory is that it was originally called Death Hill, following a belief that children passed through the fork of a local sycamore tree would be cured of diphtheria — which they were not.

A more prosaic explanation is that “deef” was a dialect word for infertile land that yielded little crop.

The village’s alternative name is Trimdon Station, which rather lacks the poetry of the original.

Philadelphia

On the A182 between Newbottle and Shiney Row sits Philadelphia, a former colliery village named – with impressive confidence – after one of America’s great cities.

The story is that a local colliery owner named it in 1777 to mark the British capture of Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War.

The village’s cricket ground was subsequently named Bunker Hill, after another battle in the same war.

Quebec

Six miles west of Durham city, on the line of the old Roman road Dere Street, sits Quebec — a former mining village that takes its name from Canada’s most famously bilingual city.

The fields in the area were enclosed in 1759, the year British forces captured Quebec from the French, and it was common practice at the time to give remote or newly enclosed land the names of far-flung places.

The village is now a small, quiet community close to Esh Winning and Langley Park, with little to suggest its connection to North America beyond the sign on the road in.

Toronto

Not to be outdone by Quebec, County Durham also has its own Toronto — a village a mile north-west of Bishop Auckland, sitting on a plateau above a loop of the River Wear.

It was named in 1859 by a mining company owner called W. Stobart, who was visiting the Canadian city of Toronto when he received word that coal had been discovered on his land back home.

In a moment of what can only be described as transatlantic sentimentality, he named the mine — and subsequently the village — after the place where he got the good news.

Stony Heap

Between Burnhope and Greencroft in the north-west of the county, Stony Heap is precisely what it sounds like: a hamlet on a heap of stony ground.

It is not glamorous.

But it is, in its own way, a masterpiece of blunt Northern honesty about the landscape.

Crook

Crook is a market town in mid-Durham that takes its name not from anything criminal but from the Old Norse word “krókr,” meaning a bend or hook — a reference to a curve in the local landscape.

It is the kind of name that makes people do a double-take on road signs and has presumably provided local teenagers with a lifetime of easy material.

Cockfield

Eight miles south-west of Bishop Auckland, Cockfield is a perfectly respectable village on the edge of Teesdale that has been quietly dealing with its name since at least the 12th century.

The name derives from the Old English “cocc,” meaning a woodcock — a bird once common in the area — combined with “feld,” meaning open land.

This explanation is entirely plausible and convinces almost no one on a first encounter with the road sign.

Busty View

Just outside Chester-le-Street, Busty View is a residential street whose name has confused and delighted visitors for years.

Like many seemingly suggestive North East place names, the origin is topographical rather than anatomical — “busty” is a dialect word for a slope or embankment, related to the word “bust” as in a ridge of land.

None of this stops it appearing on national lists of the UK’s rudest place names with impressive regularity.

Are there any places with strange names that we missed?

Do you live in any of these places and get funny looks from outsiders when you say where you’re from?

Let us know in the comments.