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More than 100 firefighters were deployed to tackle a blaze on Dunwich Heath, Suffolk |
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Melissa Lawford Economics Correspondent |
Antony Taylor was driving home on the outskirts of London when he saw a cloud of smoke billowing from a wildfire.
The father of three made it back in time to watch as his four-bedroom house burned to the ground in less than nine minutes.
That was on July 19, 2022, the hottest day ever recorded in Britain’s history – but this was not a one-off.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from Suffolk this week as wildfires ripped across 370 acres along the coast, within miles of Sizewell B nuclear power plant.
Nobody can deny that the UK is getting warmer and high temperatures are becoming a clear threat to homes, nature and food security.
Met Office data show 2025 was the hottest year on record, while the last four years were all in the UK’s top five warmest in history.
Our homes are not built for high temperatures. Yet by 2050, the Climate Change Committee expects maximum temperatures will regularly surpass 40C in many parts of the UK.
The reality is that the UK is chronically underprepared for what is to come. For subscribers only ➤ |
Rory MacLean photographed for The Telegraph in Palermo, Sicily, where he has settled |
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Rory MacLean |
I never believed in heaven. As a life-long sceptic, my beliefs were always wishy-washy and ill-defined; not agnostic, not ungodly, not anything really.
Then my wife Katrin died suddenly, aged 55. I couldn’t imagine living without her, so I decided to find out where she had gone, tracing mankind’s ideas of the afterlife around the globe.
As a travel writer, I’ve crossed hundreds of borders, so navigating the frontier between life and death felt like an obvious extension. Over five years, I travelled from Jacob’s Rock in the Holy Land to the Himalayas, from America’s Great Plains to Amazonia and beyond.
The journey opened doors for me, revealing wonders beyond my imagination, until – in five truly extraordinary moments – Katrin was beside me.
For subscribers only ➤ |
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Janet Daley The more power a government has over a service, the less variety and personal difference will be accommodated Continue reading ➤
David Bernstein Infantino’s plan was fatally flawed but a radical proposal is needed to save Fifa Continue reading ➤
Zoe Strimpel Boy George’s unabashed support for Jews makes him the man of the decade Continue reading ➤ |
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Sir Trevor Phillips, 72, is seemingly still up for a scrap |
After three years at Sky, the journalist, broadcaster, and former equalities chief is moving to New York to join CBS News. He tells Ed Cumming about his new, anti-woke boss, his amazement at trans “fantasists” and why Britain’s real problem is out-of-touch politicians influenced by dinner party gossip with other members of the elite.
Read the full interview ➤ |
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Donald Trump has banned Chinese robots from being imported into the US |
China’s top robotics company Unitree mesmerised the world earlier this year with its robots doing martial arts. Now, it has moved on: in its latest videos, the robots are picking up dirty laundry and sorting a pensioner’s pills out. This may look harmless, or even beneficial. Not to Donald Trump: he imagines an army of imported Chinese robot home helpers, ready to be turned into spies or even soldiers. His ban opens a new front in the US-China struggle for tech supremacy. In the world of robotics, China is already streets ahead. The country is embracing a future that becomes more sci-fi by the day.
Continue reading ➤ |
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Amanda Knox’s show, Cartwheel, is already the Fringe’s most controversial stand-up act |
Of all the comedy acts performing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, one name leaps out: Amanda Knox. How can she possibly make jokes about the tragedy that made her famous? Should she even be performing in the first place? She tells her side of the story to Tristram Fane Saunders. Continue reading ➤ |
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Pablo Avalos, his wife Patricia and son Thomas love their new home in Surrey |
Britain’s housing market is sluggish, with prices falling and homes languishing unsold for months. Even so, one perfectly sized property is bucking the trend: the humble three-bed. They have always been popular with second-steppers with growing families, but three-beds are also now the most sought-after size for first-time buyers and downsizers. Continue reading ➤ |
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Personal trainer Gideon Remfrey demonstrates the exercises shown to improve strength, mobility and balance in over-65s |
Think you need to spend hours in the gym to stay fit as you age? Think again. A new study shows just four minutes of simple resistance exercises a day is enough to improve the strength and balance that help us stay active and independent in later life. Even better, the gains were equivalent to turning back the clock by up to 20 years. Personal trainer Gideon Remfrey demonstrates the easy routine you can do at home.
Continue reading ➤
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Sign up for Simon Calder’s weekly travel newsletter and destination guide |
One of the joys of writing my Sunday newsletter is the chance to answer a question that helps an individual reader and also provides information or inspiration, or both, for a wider audience. Last week, I tackled Keith’s query about whether Albania is safe for individual exploration (my answer: absolutely); today, Jackie wants to know how to escape winter from her home in Wales to the South Island of New Zealand on a budget (tricky over Christmas, but easy one month earlier).
During August, though, staying in Britain is a wise move. If you're not already signed up to the travel newsletter, we contemplate the 10 most appealing harbour towns around the coast, but I also sing the praises of summer in the city. You can sign up to my travel newsletter here. With the notable exception of en fête Edinburgh, choosing an urban location can deliver a low-cost, high-value experience of summertime Britain. For me this weekend, that means Bristol, with an easy excursion to Bath.
Another happy task for each Sunday: picking a statistic from the week’s many numbers that has a particular travel resonance. Last weekend, it was one: the number of daily trains from London to Antwerp from this coming winter. Today: 25, representing the new arrivals on the Unesco World Heritage list. So much to see – make the most of it now.
Sign up for Travel with Simon Calder ➤
Listen to the podcast ➤
Plus, read about Simon’s latest adventures here ➤ |
‘The Bard of Bath’ declaiming |
Terence “Boots” Bantock, who has died aged 85, was, variously, a gifted painter of landscapes and country houses, a wandering troubadour and performance poet of rambling doggerel, a motley jester and a hermit, writes Andrew M Brown, Obituaries Editor.
Bantock took to his life of meandering after a spell at Camberwell art school. He was taken up by the gentry and sold pictures to pay his keep, though he could be a trying houseguest, prone to raiding his hosts’ fridges for food and washing it down with barley wine and Underberg.
By the 1970s, dressed in tweeds or rainbow motley, he had established himself as a public poet, declaiming hundreds of lines in stentorian tones – in Soho, at the Edinburgh Festival, in the tourist arcades of Bath, or even further afield.
He was nicknamed the Bard of Bath after his rants about the despoliation of the countryside were covered on TV, and he thundered against the metric system: “Stand up for the foot: don’t give an inch!”
Read his full obituary here ➤ |
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1865 | Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
1880 | Parliament officially adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
2017 | Prince Philip, aged 96, makes his final solo public appearance before retiring from public engagements (our front page story on that is below)
Birthdays: Charli XCX (34), JD Vance (42), Sam Worthington (50)
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Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was DICTATION. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. |
Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk. |
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