Revealed: BBC’s anti-Semitism payout

How Labour is spending your taxes | 10 ways to escape the cold of Britain

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Monday, 26 October 2026 Issue No. 610

Good morning. The BBC has paid £400,000 to a Jewish documentary maker who says she experienced anti-Semitism and was bullied out of the organisation, The Telegraph can reveal. Lucie Kon, who won an Oscar and an Emmy during her tenure at the BBC, says she was victimised following the Oct 7 attacks on Israel and eventually put out of work after she made a formal complaint about her treatment. Gordon Rayner, our Associate Editor, reports. Elsewhere, as John Healey prepares to announce his maiden Budget this week, Ben Butcher, our Data Editor, breaks down how Labour is using your taxes. See how your money is spent below. Chris Evans, Editor P.S. It’s your last chance to secure 1 year of The Telegraph for just £19. But be quick: this limited-time offer must end soon. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.   In today’s edition How is Labour spending your taxes, exactly? — Michael Carrick on brink of sack at Man Utd — Plus, 10 ways to escape the cold of Britain from just £30 a day

Last chance: 1 year for £19 Unlock full access to The Telegraph, including all the articles in this newsletter, before our lowest annual offer expires. Claim your offer   Revealed: BBC’s £400k payout after anti-Semitism claims Lucie Kon was made to feel ‘ashamed’ at the BBC after an award-winning career Gordon Rayner Associate Editor   The BBC has paid out more than £400,000 to a Jewish documentary maker who was made redundant after complaining of anti-Semitism at the broadcaster. Emmy award-winner Lucie Kon said she had been victimised after the Oct 7 terrorist attacks in Israel by colleagues who told her Zionists like her were “evil”. Kon, who has family in Israel, claimed she was told that “if you want to call Hamas terrorists then you have to call Israel terrorists too” and that she should “think about what drove Hamas to do what they did”. She told The Telegraph that working at the BBC after Oct 7 “was like having Jew stamped on my forehead”. This report is available only to subscribers. Continue reading ➤ ‘The BBC broke me because I am a Jew’ ➤   Money Clinic How is Labour spending your taxes, exactly? John Healey and Andy Burnham are expected to deliver a low-key maiden Budget on Wednesday | Credit: Getty / Mark Cosgrove Ben Butcher Data Editor   The British public has never paid more in taxes. The tax burden is at a post-war high, and with John Healey giving his first Budget as Chancellor on Wednesday, this upward trend seems unlikely to stop. Taxpayers are well within their rights to ask where exactly the money they sacrifice each month is going. Our tool breaks down where every penny is spent – from welfare to street lights. Our analysis shows that the average taxpayer is contributing £1,611 a year to the NHS, £1,021 to state pensions and – shockingly – £910 to pay off the national debt that consecutive chancellors have accrued. While £903 is spent on unemployment and sickness welfare, just £365 is spent on the military. Use our tool to find out exactly where your money goes… Continue reading ➤ James Baxter-Derrington Investment Editor   Meanwhile, the City is beginning to fear that borrowing costs will skyrocket once more, despite being at 20-year highs. With talk that the Budget might be “boring”, speculation is growing that the PM is laying the ground for a snap election. Investors warn that going to the polls early could trigger higher borrowing costs and weaken the pound. A light-touch approach by the Chancellor might do more harm than good, my colleague Eir Nolsøe, our Economics Correspondent, reports here. Finally, every Monday for five weeks, we’ve been bringing you useful guides on how to protect your money against anything the Budget might throw at you. Once again, the nation is preparing itself for more taxes, but this is not the only additional cost weighing on Britain today. Inflation is on the rise as the war in Iran adds pressure to energy and fuel costs. With these twin pressures, it pays to be prepared. Mortgages, pensions, investments and savings can all be affected by inflation and higher taxes. Here, Telegraph Money explains how to protect your money as life in Britain threatens to get even more expensive. For subscribers only ➤ Chancellor backs oil drilling at Rosebank ➤   Opinion Tim Stanley Benjamin Netanyahu is destroying the case for a Jewish homeland Gaza has become the Vietnam of its time Continue reading ➤     Liam Halligan No time for schadenfreude if French bonds blow up first Continue reading ➤     Michael Mosbacher The questionable value of Britain’s second-hand books Continue reading ➤   To make sure you don’t miss our newsletters when they land in your inbox, click here. In other news • Lula da Silva, Brazil’s Left-wing president, won an unprecedented fourth term overnight, beating his far-Right opponent Flávio Bolsonaro in a stunning result that defied polls. • Thomas Markle’s ex-wife was the author of a letter sent to the Metropolitan Police that accused him of being a paedophile. • Reform UK will promise to repeal EU laws left over from before Brexit. Robert Jenrick, will also unveil plans to tear up red tape around home improvements, and do more to help motorists. • Bedbugs have forced the closure of prison cells in the latest blow to Labour’s efforts to solve the prison overcrowding crisis, with nearly 3,800 prison spaces being out of use. • The cyber attack that crippled operations at Jaguar Land Rover last year was state-sponsored, a former defence minister has admitted. The hack is estimated to have cost as much as £2.1bn. • Two men were killed by falling trees as Storm Boelo caused winds of up to 80mph. A man in his 20s died after a tree fell on his car in Finchley, north London, at about 12.40pm yesterday. Earlier in the day, a 60-year-old was struck by a falling tree and killed in Dumfries and Galloway. A large tree smashed through a house in Darlington   Your essential reads Michael Carrick on brink of sack at Man Utd Manchester United’s second defeat in a week has left manager Michael Carrick’s future hanging in the balance. He appears to have the backing of the supporters, who cheered his name as he left the field following a dismal display against Bournemouth, a match his team lost 3-0. As soon as Carrick entered the tunnel, cheers turned to boos as the players felt the full force of Old Trafford’s unhappiness. So, who could replace Carrick if he is sacked? Michael Carrick on brink of sack ➤ Who could replace Man Utd manager? ➤   Alice Weidel hopes to ‘rebuild and reform’ the European Union AfD’s plan to destroy the EU Germany’s AfD has a plan to downsize the European Union as the hard-Right party prepares its pitch for power in Berlin. Like so many of her Eurosceptic allies, Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, has had to water down an ambition to remove her country from the bloc to win mainstream voters. Instead, if victorious in Germany’s next federal election, she will demand that Brussels hands back powers and cash to national governments to create a loose federation of sovereign nations. The caveat? If her demands are not met, she will hold a referendum on Germany’s membership of the EU. Continue reading ➤   Ballas voted to save the ‘visibly clodhopping’ Shaun Wright-Phillips Strictly surprise as Shirley Ballas opts to save the series’ worst dancer What a curious week for the judges, writes Chris Bennion. Shirley Ballas was booed to the rafters, Craig Revel Horwood shoved a shoe in her mouth, Anton Du Beke grunted and groaned – and all in response to an aggressive tango from an EastEnders actress. More curious still was the fact that Revel Horwood and Du Beke were a full three points apart when scoring both Shaun Wright-Phillips and Delta Goodrem. One of the male judges must have been having a peculiar evening, but oddest of all was Ballas’s volte-face decision to save Wright-Phillips in last night’s dance-off ahead of Jaime Winstone. She scored the footballer three on Saturday and the actress six. No matter, the other judges correctly saved Winstone, who must be wondering why the public (and Ballas) just can’t warm to her. This was her second dance-off and Ballas’s decision must have added insult to injury. As for Wright-Phillips, he should have gone in Week 1. If Karen Carney proved last year that footballers could dance, Wright-Phillips seemed to be on a mission to prove she was the exception to the rule. Continue reading ➤   Seize the day 10 ways to escape the cold of Britain from just £30 a day Sharm El-Sheikh offers some of the cheapest packages for guaranteed sunshine Mere months ago, most of us were enjoying (or enduring) a blistering British summer, ut it’s time to accept that we’ve entered the season of rain, darkness and pre-Christmas blues. Don’t despair, you can escape the gloom between now and May with one of our 10 trips putting some serious distance between you and the UK. Continue reading ➤   CAPTION COMPETITION WITH... Matt Pritchett Cartoonist   Hello! For this week’s cartoon, we have two people struggling against a storm. What do you think they are doing? May the best man or woman win. Congratulations to Richard Layton for the caption below. Lovely work. Submit your caption here ➤ P.S. For an inside look at what inspires my weekly cartoons, you can sign up for my personal newsletter here. Catch up on the latest edition here.   Your say Memories of Leatherhead In last week’s Pride of Place column, Christopher Howse rolled back the years with his memories of Leatherhead, his hometown. Today, he’s standing in for Orlando Bird to pull out the best of your responses. Christopher writes... Every one of your replies to my column about Leatherhead stirred vivid memories. Often you saw the place from a different perspective…   Deborah Grant’s parents owned Chish & Fips – the fish and chip shop where I might be sent for 18 pennyworth of chips. They lived above it and she recalled that “my boyfriend’s parents could smell when he’d been to my place”, but “we had a good start which turned us into realistic, resilient adults”.   Guy Hockley had his first job, aged 11, in the Christmas hols at the butcher’s in the High Street. He stayed down in the cold room all day in charge of the turkeys. “Each bird was plucked and drawn, dropped down to me to tie in a muslin net, attach a numbered label and hang on a hook.” It was great work, he remembers: “No adult would have done it. Very welcome holiday money!”   A detail in Rowland Wateridge’s memories is of going on Saturday mornings with his sister to visit an elderly lady near St John’s School. “Our diet was usually an Irish stew slow-cooked on a paraffin lamp stove.”   More than one reader recalled the repertory theatre in the High Street (later, as the Thorndike Theatre, replacing the Crescent Cinema). It “produced a steady stream of top-quality plays and was a launching pad for several future West End stars”, wrote Henry Macdonald.   Also in the High Street is The Duke’s Head, where Jonathan Elms had his first pint of Friary Meux Mild, though he came to prefer the Running Horse in Bridge Street. “Richard Wakeford VC,” he remembers, “lived in a cottage next to Vale Lodge at the top of Downs Lane. He once reported me to my father for driving the Jaguar XK150 illegally up the lane, but made up for it by giving me his beautifully mounted collection of military cigarette cards.” I’m grateful for our readers’ recollections, from which I got as much as I did from revisiting Leatherhead after 50 years. Let me know if any more memories spring to mind here. Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name.   On this day 1863 | Football Association forms in England, standardising the sport and splitting from rugby 1918 | Cecil Chubb gives the prehistoric monument Stonehenge to Britain 1951 | Winston Churchill re-elected as prime minister at the age of 76 (see our front page from the following day below) 2019 | US special forces kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State founder and leader, in Syria Birthdays: Evan Gershkovich (35), Sarina Wiegman (57), Hillary Clinton (79) Plus, in the news this week, which type of food is facing a rebrand thanks to new EU legislation? 1. Organic food 2. Vegetables 3. Meat-flavoured crisps 4. Sugary cereals Click one of the options to reveal the answer...   Puzzles 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 GORBLIMEY. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.   Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk. Last chance: 1 year for £19 Unlock full access to The Telegraph, including all the articles in this newsletter, before our lowest annual offer expires. Claim your offer

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