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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers rescued from the Mediterranean Sea to Albania has suffered a serious setback after a Rome immigration court rejected the offshore detention of the first group of migrants.

In its verdict, the Rome court’s immigration section ruled that 12 male migrants held in Albania — who originally come from Bangladesh and Egypt — “have the right to be taken to Italy” due to the “impossibility of recognising the states of origin of the detained persons as ‘safe countries’.”

The decision was founded on a recent verdict by the European Court of Justice, which ruled this month that countries cannot be deemed “partially safe” for the purpose of deciding on deportations.

An Italian official confirmed the 12 would be brought to Italy for further processing.

The verdict is an embarrassing political setback for Meloni, who has touted her scheme for holding would-be asylum seekers in centres in Albania as a means of fulfilling her pledge to reduce inflows of irregular migrants from across the Mediterranean.

Her plan — and its promise of processing asylum claims offshore — has attracted strong international interest, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describing it as an example from which to draw lessons, and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer recently asking Meloni in Rome for more details.

Meloni expressed dismay at the ruling but insisted it would only be a temporary setback.

“Italians have asked me to stop illegal immigration and I will do my best, she said during an official trip to Lebanon. “I’m sorry that at a time when all of Europe is looking at something that Italy is trying to do, we’re trying, as always, to put spokes in the wheels.”

Meloni said she was convening an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday to discuss how to overcome the new legal obstacles. “I don’t think it’s the judges’ competence to determine which countries are safe and which are not; it’s the government’s competence,” she said. “Maybe the government needs to clarify better what is meant by a safe country.”

Italy has so far spent at least an estimated €60mn to build and equip the Albanian centres, which formally started operating on Wednesday with the arrival of an initial 16 migrants. 

Of that first group, selected from among hundreds of people rescued in the Mediterranean by Italian authorities in recent days, four were immediately deemed ineligible to be held in Albania and were taken onwards to Italy — two who were thought to be minors and two for medical reasons. 

Senator Lucio Malan, a member of Meloni’s rightwing Brothers of Italy party, called the court’s order to send the remaining 12 migrants back to Italy “scandalous”.

“Some politicised magistrates have decided there are no safe countries of origin,” the senator, who sits on the senate’s foreign relations committee, wrote on X. “It is impossible to detain those who enter illegally; it is forbidden to repatriate illegal immigrants.

“They would like to abolish the borders of Italy: we will not allow it,” he added.

The far-right League, the party of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, called the court order “unacceptable”. 

Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi told a press conference on Friday afternoon that the government would appeal against the ruling with a higher court.

Lawyer Lorenzo Trucco, president of the Association for the Study of Immigration Law, hailed Friday’s decision, saying “the rule of law had prevailed over the illegitimate acts” of the government, and had exposed the “absurdity and unfairness” of the Italy-Albania deal.

The deal reached between Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama last year allowed Italy to build two migrant detention centres in Albania to hold up to 3,000 migrants while Italian authorities processed their asylum claims.

The deal specified that the centres would only hold healthy adult men from countries that Italy had already deemed “safe” for potential return. Those found to have valid asylum claims would be granted refuge in Italy, while those deemed to be illegal immigrants would be returned to their countries of origin through an expedited process

To prepare for the centres’ opening, Italy earlier this year designated 22 countries — including Bangladesh and Egypt — as safe for returns with some exceptions, such as for political dissidents from Egypt and LGBT+ people from Tunisia.

The EU court ruled that European law does not permit countries to be categorised as partially safe, which shaped the Rome court’s verdict. New EU rules due to come into force in 2026, however, will allow countries to be described as safe with exceptions for some regions or some categories of people.

Italy is seeking to advance implementation of that part of the bloc’s migration and asylum pact, said an EU diplomat. Von der Leyen, in a letter to the bloc’s leaders this week, committed to bringing the revision of the safe countries concept forward to 2025.

Additional reporting by Paola Tamma in Brussels 

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The ground is soft and easily planted with bulbs. The last spring flowering bulbs that should go in are tulips, readily plantable until late November. Tulips and I have had a rollercoaster ride in recent years, but I am checking in for another turn.

In the 2010s, when we started to have hotter temperatures in spring, I went off tulips. They flowered weeks early and dropped their petals after a few days of sunshine. For our Oxford college gardens I choose tulips predicted to flower in May when the undergraduates will be in residence to enjoy them. In accelerated spring times they flower in early April when the college is shut for Easter. For a few days I enjoy them, feeling spoilt and guilty that their target audience cannot.

The cream and yellow flowers of Grand Perfection are feathered with dark red, like tulips in an old Dutch painting

Are they worth the cost and trouble, I began to wonder three years ago? Still wondering, I planted midseason Triumph tulips for this year’s spring as I needed a display on April 14, the date of the ceremonial inauguration of a newly built college quadrangle and its series of borders and flowerbeds. Mid-season Triumphs are billed as flowering in late April to May but, in a warmer season, I thought mid-April would be nearer the mark. As late as December 6 we planted our chosen varieties. We did not combine them first into a multicoloured mixture. We spaced them out in segregated groups of 20. The rain poured down our necks as we trowelled each one in, leaving four inches of soil above its tip and scattering a pinch of bone meal, a good trick, under its base. It seemed unlikely they would survive the wet and justify their name.

After a continuously mild and damp winter, they began to flower on March 6. A display for the inauguration seemed a lost cause, but the days and nights remained cold and to my amazement the tulips held their flowers for six weeks as if in an outdoor fridge. The mainstays were Flaming Agrass, a lovely blend of white and mid-yellow; blood red Hollandia, a great choice; and the excellent Grand Perfection whose cream and yellow flowers are feathered with dark red, like tulips in an old Dutch painting. I recommend them all, whatever the weather throws at them.

At home, I planted premixed assortments of Triumph tulips instead. I had high hopes, but they were planted within sight of wildlife in open country. Two setbacks destroyed them. First, the leaves on many of them began to turn brown and wrinkle: they were victims of the fungal condition called tulip fire. A frequent cause of it is excessive wet, just what last winter gave by the bucketful. There is no ready spray to kill it off. Worse, it persists in the soil for at least three years.

A few of my tulips avoided it and set promising buds. They advanced no further because in one night of murder a visiting muntjac bit off all the buds, eating some, scattering others uselessly on the ground. So much for wildlife in the garden, that indiscriminate mantra. It bites off more than it can chew.

This year I will try a different tactic, one that will bring my plantings closer to many of yours. I will plant the tulips in big clay pots and space the pots in the gaps in flowerbeds where dahlias have been sulking in the recent wet weather. Out come the dahlias to be stored away from frost until late May. In their place will go clay pots wide enough to take about 10 tulips each. I will buy cheap pots from supermarkets and keep the tulips out of reach of animals at ground level. Between the pots I will mix blue forget-me-nots and double pink and white bellis, known as bachelor’s buttons. In pots, the tulips will be in fresh soil, free of fungal tulip fire. Except for the menace of wildlife, the pots could be black plastic, sunk into the surrounding soil but shielded from its diseases. If so, they need to be watered in a dry spring.

In urban courtyards or on balconies you may be potting tulips too: in a range that can seem bewildering, which are good choices? Tulips span months from March to May, so make use of the full season. I begin with Water Lily tulips, which usually in flower in March. Their flower stems are less than a foot tall so they are excellent choices for window boxes, yellow and red Giuseppe Verdi and cream and red Johann Strauss being my favourites. In window boxes lily-flowered tulips are no good as they are too tall and flop badly. The fosteriana group is much better — lovely white Purissima and vivid scarlet Madame Lefevre being the best in early April.

For mid-May, Tulip Queen of the Night is a top-seller: a dark maroon that is indeed almost black. I mix it in pots with a few white ones, especially Alabaster, which flowers at the same time: six or seven black to three white. Another chic option is a green-flowered variety from the viridiflora group, which flowers in late April; Green Spirit is a cool customer, a cream-white with green stripes on its petals, as is the similar Spring Green. In pots they are eye-catching, but after a long wet winter I am even more cheered by Yellow Spring Green, a bright yellow with green stripes, a tulip that opens prettily and holds itself well.

Tulips offer colours unlike any other flower, so it is fun to choose them. I particularly like those that are streaked or striped, Olympic Flame being my top choice, a Darwin hybrid whose primrose yellow flowers are streaked with red. In pots, the ruffled flowers of parrot tulips are fun too, especially the robust Estella Rynveld, a May-flowering tulip whose white flowers are twirled with red and streaks of green, and Flaming Parrot, whose mid-yellow flowers are feathered in bright red. In flowerbeds, parrot tulips in a block look too exotic, but in pots they are very striking, apt for their artificial setting.

Parks and public gardens accustom our eyes to tulips massed by the hundred in only one colour. In a broad open space they are impressive, but in a garden I find small groups, dotted in tens, are more effective and obviously much cheaper. In the beautifully planned gardens at Coton Manor in Northamptonshire, double-flowered tulips are planted in small groups where the bare earth is visible in the broad borders of summer flowering plants. They look like early peonies and blend in beautifully, pink Finola with a dash of white being the garden’s favourite. I am trying white-and-red streaked Carnaval de Nice for this purpose, badgers permitting. It is an excellent use for double tulips, which simulate peonies and otherwise look too fussy.

Good choices proliferate, but these are a start. Water lily tulips will often flower well for a year or two, but the others I have named are one-year wonders. The bulbs split in British gardens and seldom build up to a size that flowers again. Tulips are the very opposite of sustainable. They are unmissable, unlike sustainable, tedious ground elder. Beauty is still beauty, even if it lasts for no more than a fortnight.     

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THE best pubs in Britain have been revealed, with four finalists now competing for the top spot.

Every year the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) assembles a list of less than 20 local pubs from around the UK for a shortlist in its Pub of the Year competition.

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This is the highest achievement a pub can receive and is especially important at a time when many pubs are being forced to shut up shop due to high energy prices and other costs.

All pubs are scored on their atmosphere, decor, welcome, service, inclusivity, overall impression and the quality of drinks including beer, real cider and perry.

This year there are 17 pubs which have been hand-picked from thousands across the nation.

These include both local pubs and former high street shops.

The shortlist has now been whittled down to just four competitors, of which the overall winner will be crowned in January 2025.

Last year’s winner was the Tamworth Tap in Staffordshire, which bagged the top spot in both 2023 and 2022.

Black Horse

Among the top four finalists is the Black Horse in Preston.

This Victorian Grade II listed pub still has many of the original fittings from when it was built, including a ceramic bar, tiled walls and mosaic floor.

A seating area has been dubbed the “Hall of Mirrors” due to its breathtaking original stained glass.

Its ten handpumps include four changing guest beers and a range of ciders.

Despite its name it’s not a dark horse in the contest and has already bagged the titles of Central Lancashire Branch Pub of the Year and Lancashire Branches Pub of the Year.

Three B’s

This micropub in Bridlington is run by a husband and wife duo who are passionate about beer and cider.

Its name encapsulates the pub’s ethos and stands for “banter”, “beer” and “bar snacks”.

The Three B’s aims to never sell the same beer twice, which ensures there’s always an exciting range of ever changing drinks at the bar.

Meanwhile, its customer service is unmatched and staff are keen to chat about the drinks they serve and the local area.

Little Green Dragon

There’s something for everyone at the Little Green Dragon in Winchmore Hill.

The micropub boasts an ever changing selection of four cask beers which are sourced from local and independent breweries.

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Plus there’s a fantastic selection of real cider, perry and four keg beers.

While they drink, pubgoers can also enjoy a traditional game of table skittles or shove ha’penny.

The pub has already secured several titles including CAMRA’s Great London Pub of the Year.

The Bailey Head, Oswestry

Close to the Welsh borders in the delightful market town of Oswestry is the Bailey Head.

The pub has one of the largest beer selections in all of Shropshire and claims to have sold more than 3,400 different beers since it flung open its doors in March 2016.

There are six constantly changing cask beers and always includes one dark beer, plus eleven other draught beers, four ciders and a perry.

National Pub of the Year Coordinator Andrea Briers said: “These fantastic four are the epitome of what a good pub should be.

“I am excited to find out which one will be crowned the best pub in the UK.”

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GOOGLE Flights have revealed a new tool that will help holidaymakers find the cheapest plane ticket.

The new booking feature, which was announced earlier this week, will help passengers find the cheapest fares.

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Holidaymakers who already use Google Flights to find airfares will know that the search engine displays the ‘best options’ at the top of the results page.

These deals are normally direct flights that fly to and from the most convenient airport, although they’re not always the cheapest options.

Google Flights‘ latest feature, which is being rolled out across the platform this week, will have an option to display the cheapest flights.

A blog post from Google reads: “But sometimes, there might be cheaper options available for those of you who are willing to give up some convenience for the best deal.

“For example, there could be a third-party booking site offering a lower price than the airline itself.

“Or you might be able to save by flying back to a different airport that’s in the same city you departed from — like flying out of New York’s LaGuardia and returning to JFK.”

In order to find the cheapest flights, passengers will need to click on the “cheapest” tab on the search engine to see if there are any better deals to be had.

In order to bag the cheapest flights, holidaymakers may need to be more creative with their itineraries by opting for longer layovers, self-transfers or purchasing flights with multiple airlines.

By using this new feature, holidaymakers will need to decide whether the cost savings are worth the hassle.

It is hoped that the new Google Flights feature will help budget travellers find the best bargains.

The news comes just weeks after Google Flights introduced a refund feature that offers travellers the lowest price guarantee when booking certain flights.

Google announced: “No one likes to feel buyer’s remorse, and that’s especially true for a big purchase like plane tickets where the prices change from day to day.”

The new tool enables travellers to determine whether the price of their trip is low, high, or average for their planned trip.

Jetsetters can also set flexible dates to find the cheapest time to book.

However, if the price drops between the time of purchase and take-off, Google will pay the difference via Google Pay.

The refund policy will only apply to flights that are booked with Google and departing from the US.

Travellers should ensure there is a price guarantee badge before purchasing a ticket otherwise, they won’t be eligible for a refund if the price drops before takeoff.

Cheap Airfares

Earlier this year, a travel expert revealed the “sweet spot” for flights to get cheap fares.

Jack Sheldon, flight expert at Jacksflightclub.com, said the best time to bag the cheapest flight tickets is between six to 12 weeks before taking off.

Flyers can get an absolute bargain deal while following the hack – and can save up to 50 per cent on flight tickets.

Booking a flight midweek instead of a weekend – when airports can be really busy – can also help you save some extra cash which you can splash on your vacation instead.

Gavin Lapidus, travel agent and director of multi-centre holiday specialists eShores, said Monday to Wednesday is the best time of the week to board a cheap flight.

If you’re flexible with your dates, always double-check departure days, as flying a day sooner or later could save you up to 20 per cent.

The travel expert has shared a number of tips around saving cash when booking your holiday.

However, travellers are advised not to overlook travel agents as lots of them specialise in finding the best value trips for customers.

Condé Nast Traveller’s fashion editor Charlotte Davey gave a word of advice when booking future flights.

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The Pod loos at Sketch in Mayfair are probably the most Instagrammed in the world. But if everything had gone to plan, they wouldn’t even exist. Originally the huge space behind the gallery and the restaurant was going to be a bar. But then, one night during construction, owner Mourad Mazouz woke in a panic convinced he was making a mistake. Instead of adding another bar to the two already planned, he thought why not install some statement bathrooms instead.

As Sketch (Bloomsbury), a new history of the landmark restaurant that opened in 2002, recounts, the 12 egg-shaped loos were inspired by sci-fi and constructed out of fibreglass by a Cowes yacht-maker whose initial response was “I do NOT make toilets”. The Pods aren’t even the fanciest loos at Sketch. That honour surely falls to the “Music Box” bathrooms on the first floor conceived by jewellery designer Mehbs Yaqub and decorated with Swarovski crystals.

Few chefs want to be outshone by their bathrooms. But the best examples reinforce the values of their restaurants and act as a marketing tool in the form of the #bathroomselfie. This phenomenon arguably reached its zenith when the pink floral and rainforest-themed powder rooms designed by Martin Brudnizki for the revamped Annabel’s in Berkeley Square became the spots to see and be seen.

Nevertheless, our fascination continues. Gemma Wardle’s Loos of London TikTok guides (79.6k followers) take us take us from the disco-themed loos at Jacuzzi in Kensington High Street to the baroque lavatories at Gloria in Milan – prime examples of the deranged bathrooms for which the Big Mamma group is famous.

Few chefs want to be outshone by their bathrooms

A tour of other standout bathrooms might include the nautical-themed WCs at Foxglove in Hong Kong; Brooklands in London, inspired by Concorde and racing cars; and the high-rise loos at what used to be called the Boom Boom Room at the Standard in New York, where views across the city were briefly eclipsed post-launch by views from the street of patrons doing their business. Privacy screens were promptly added. These days the most talked-about facility in New York is probably the handwashing station inside the entrance to Coqodaq, where diners are expected to ritually cleanse with Loewe soap before entering the “cathedral of fried chicken”.

Speaking of cathedrals, the hieratic loos at Sessions Arts Club in Farringdon were inspired by the cathedrals of Canterbury and Amiens. Stained-glass portraits on the confessional-like cubicle doors pay tribute to figures associated with the building, such as King George III, who initiated its construction, and George Harrison and Star Trek’s Jean Luc-Picard, two heroes of the architects (Ted and Oliver Grebelius) behind its refurbishment.

As for the most beautiful loos in town, I nominate The Park in Bayswater, the newest opening from Jeremy King. Located at the bottom of a grand staircase over which hang two lower panels (torso and legs) from Alex Katz’s Coca-Cola Girl, the honey-toned bathrooms designed by Shayne Brady (behind Arlington and The Maine) are filled with black-and-white Horst portraits and lit to make you look like a million bucks. “I always want our bathrooms to cocoon a guest and make them feel the prettiest version of themselves,” says Brady.

Plenty of bathrooms send you back humming a tune too. At Raffles at the OWO in Whitehall, guests encounter a James Bond score playlist. At Cycene at the Blue Mountain School in Shoreditch, a Roberts radio set to Radio 3 “provides a constant purring backdrop of familiarity”. At The Tent in Fitzrovia you get stand-up comedy from legends such as Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams. “We often hear laughter coming from the toilets when Richard Pryor’s routines are playing,” says chef John Javier. At Lyst in Denmark designed by Olafur Eliasson, what sounds like a cheery guest in an adjacent cubicle is actually a recorded soloist from a humming choir diddlee-dumming to traditional Danish songs.

Researching this piece, I got so used to listening out for avant-garde soundscapes that when I visited the bathrooms at Piraña in Mayfair, a Peruvian-Japanese restaurant where the tacos are as tasty as the sushi, I mistakenly took the echoey acoustics for choral music spliced with whale sounds. It turned out to be the extraction fan. Still, the two-dozen red-bellied piranhas circling the tank above the washbasins made up for it.  

@ajesh34

ENERGY suppliers have started issuing £150 payments to help millions of households with gas and electricity costs this winter.

This support is provided through the government’s Warm Home Discount scheme, offering a one-off, tax-free discount on electricity bills for low-income households.

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The scheme reopened at the beginning of the month, and customers have taken to social media to share that they’ve started receiving the £150 discount.

Households in England and Wales don’t have to apply to get the cash and receive it automatically.

Some Scottish households do have to apply for the discount.

One EDF customer on Facebook yesterday: “Has anyone got their Warm Home Discount of £150 as we have had ours this afternoon added to our smart meter.”

Another customer responded and said: “Mine came through today too.

One Ovo Energy customer also said on Facebook this morning: “Woke up this morning to the Warm Home Discount applied to my meter!”

Another added: “Same! I haven’t been entitled the last few years, so I don’t know what’s changed!”

The eligibility requirements for the Warm Home Discount are the same as last year.

Between now and December, the government is issuing letters to over three million households eligible for the scheme.

These will tell you:

• You’re eligible and you’ll get the discount automatically; or
• You might be eligible, and you need to give more information.
• The letter will tell you to call the helpline by February 29, 2024 to confirm your details.

Who’s eligible for the discount?

To qualify for the Warm Home Discount, you need to claim either the guaranteed credit element of pension credit or a different qualifying benefit form the list below:

If you weren’t claiming any of the above benefits on August 11, 2024, you won’t be eligible for the payment.

Where someone claims a qualifying benefit, the government will assess their energy costs based on the type, age and size of property.

This means that you may not be considered eligible for the Warm Home Discount if you live in a more energy-efficient property for instance, even if you receive a qualifying benefit.

However, this rule doesn’t apply to recipients of the guarantee credit portion of pension credit.

Even if you weren’t getting pension credit on August 11, thousands of pensioners who apply for the benefit now can still qualify for the £150 payment.

This is because pension credit rules allow first-time claimants to backdate their benefit entitlement by three months.

So you’ll need to launch your claim by November 10 and then successfully get it backdated to cover the August 11 Warm Home Discount qualifying date.

But if you fail to apply before this date, you’ll miss out.

If you haven’t received a letter confirming your eligibility for the scheme by early January 2024, but believe you qualify, you should contact the helpline on 0800 030 9322.

How is the Warm Home Discount paid?

If you pay by direct debit or on receipt of your bill the £150 Warm Home Discount will be added to your electricity account as a credit.

Once it has been applied, it will show on your next bill.

If you have a traditional prepayment meter, your energy supplier will send you a letter explaining how you’ll get your discount.

You’ll usually receive a Post Office voucher in the post and instructions on redeeming it. 

It’s vital to cash in these vouchers as soon as you receive them.

Data from the Post Office, showed that up to £3million worth of vouchers went unclaimed last year.

If you have a smart prepayment meter, your energy supplier will automatically credit your meter with the discount.

What energy bill help is available?

There’s a number of different ways to get help paying your energy bills if you’re struggling to get by.

If you fall into debt, you can always approach your supplier to see if they can put you on a repayment plan before putting you on a prepayment meter.

This involves paying off what you owe in instalments over a set period.

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If your supplier offers you a repayment plan you don’t think you can afford, speak to them again to see if you can negotiate a better deal.

Several energy firms have grant schemes available to customers struggling to cover their bills.

But eligibility criteria vary depending on the supplier and the amount you can get depends on your financial circumstances.

For example, British Gas or Scottish Gas customers struggling to pay their energy bills can get grants worth up to £2,000.

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British Gas also offers help via its British Gas Energy Trust and Individuals Family Fund.

You don’t need to be a British Gas customer to apply for the second fund.

EDF, E.ON, Octopus Energy and Scottish Power all offer grants to struggling customers too.

Thousands of vulnerable households are missing out on extra help and protections by not signing up to the Priority Services Register (PSR).

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The service helps support vulnerable households, such as those who are elderly or ill, and some of the perks include being given advance warning of blackouts, free gas safety checks and extra support if you’re struggling.

Get in touch with your energy firm to see if you can apply.