samedi 19 septembre 2026

Putin preparing to escalate war

Chancellor plans high street tax break | What shrinkflation has done to your favourite chocolate bar
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Britain’s most popular daily newsletter, read by more than 850,000

Saturday, 19 September 2026

Issue No. 573

Good morning.

Vladimir Putin is preparing to escalate his war against Ukraine and intensify hybrid attacks on Kyiv’s allies. Western intelligence officials believe he is laying the ground for a “stealth mobilisation” in which thousands of Russians could be drafted. Tom Cotterill, our Defence Editor, reports from Prague.

Elsewhere, John Healey is planning a package of tax breaks for small high street businesses. As Tony Diver, our Political Editor, says, a month and a half before the Budget, Andy Burnham’s priorities are starting to become clear.

I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk.

Chris Evans, Editor

P.S. We’re giving you a whole year of The Telegraph for just £29. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.


 

In today’s edition

Generation Kneecap’s plan to break up Britain

What shrinkflation has done to your favourite chocolate bar

Plus, find the best secondary schools near you

Try 1 year for just £29

Unlock this newsletter, plus full access to our website and app for less than £2.50 a month.

 

Putin preparing to escalate war

Tom Cotterill

Tom Cotterill

in Prague

 

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has dragged on longer than the entirety of the First World War.

Far from seeking to end it, the Russian leader now appears to want to double down and escalate the conflict.

Western intelligence officials believe he is laying the ground for a “stealth mobilisation” after elections this weekend, in which thousands of Russians could be drafted.

Voter

A woman in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which is currently occupied by Russia, casts her ballot

“What we are seeing is administrative preparations to make it possible to do it, if that was the decision,” one intelligence source told The Telegraph.

While Putin continues his relentless bombing campaign in Ukraine, he now also appears to be setting his sights on allies of Kyiv, in an attempt to chip away at support.

European leaders fear that the Kremlin’s hybrid war against the West is likely to intensify as a result.

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, responded by ordering a plan to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure and defence industries from potential sabotage.

Nato has repeatedly insisted it does not seek a war with Russia, with Western officials adding it was unlikely Putin wanted to be dragged into a major conflict with the alliance.

Poland’s Donald Tusk warned that Russia was planning missile strikes on countries supporting Ukraine, adding that Moscow planned to describe the incidents as “accidental” to test the Nato alliance.

This report is available only to subscribers.
Continue reading

 

Chancellor plans high street tax break

Tony Diver

Tony Diver

Political Editor

 

When Andy Burnham took office, he declared that high streets should stand as a “symbol of Britain’s renaissance”.

Look at vacant shop fronts across the country and they stand more as a testament to economic decline.

So it is no surprise that the long-bemoaned British high street will feature heavily in the new Government’s first Budget, as Burnham seems to project optimism onto his first year in office.

Senior government sources told The Telegraph that next month’s statement would contain tax cuts for small businesses, including more support on business rates.

John Healey, the Chancellor, is considering raising the threshold at which firms start paying the tax, and extending relief for companies hardest-hit by new valuations that took effect in April.

Raising the threshold, which has been frozen since 2016, in line with inflation could see 5,000 pubs pay no business rates at all. The move has already been welcomed by business campaigners.

Six weeks before the Budget, Burnham’s priorities are starting to take shape.

Labour officials hope that measures targeted at small businesses will boost economic growth and improve the appearance of towns and cities, giving the Prime Minister ammunition ahead of the next election.
Read the full story

 

Opinion

Camilla Tominey Headshot

Camilla Tominey

Are we returning to the Royal madness of 1997?

Earl Spencer is employing the same sensationalist tactics he condemned in his Diana eulogy to pour scorn on the Firm

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Tom Harris</span> Headshot

Tom Harris

Any faith I had in Burnham has evaporated

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Charles Moore</span> Headshot

Charles Moore

The deluded Church of England prefers empty gestures to unpalatable truths

Continue reading

 
Matt Cartoon
 

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In other news

Earl Spencer has doubled down on his claims that the King made disparaging remarks about Diana, Princess of Wales, in the days after her death.

Britain’s air traffic control service waited almost three hours before seeking help to fix a software glitch that grounded more than 2,000 flights.

Emmanuel Macron’s protégé has invited Britain to join a “United States of Europe” in a de facto reversal of Brexit. Gabriel Attal wants a group of perhaps eight or 10 countries to form a bloc.

Donald Trump claimed he would sign a deal with Denmark to take over “permanent control” of Greenland’s security after months of threatening to take it by force.

Oxford United have “sincerely apologised” after releasing a new clothing range featuring the words “United 93” days after the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

A club source said those behind the blunder were too young to remember the full details of the September 11 attacks

 

Weekend reads

Generation Kneecap’s plan to break up Britain

Andrew Clarke is one of a growing number of young people in Northern Ireland pushing for reunification. With the violence of the Troubles fading into history, a new generation of nationalists wants to see a united Ireland with better opportunities. Lily Shanagher visited Belfast to find out why.

Continue reading

 

John Torode: The BBC spat me out

Sipping Earl Grey in London’s Goring Hotel, John Torode breaks down in tears. Sacked without warning after two decades presenting MasterChef, the chef tells friend and former colleague William Sitwell how the BBC “machine spat me out”. While he remains baffled by the opaque investigation, Torode hints at darker motives behind his sudden dismissal.

Continue reading

 

Revealed: What shrinkflation has done to your favourite chocolate bar

Few things have come to symbolise inflation quite like the shrinking chocolate bar. The Telegraph has delved through decades of wrappers to work out how much our favourites, including Mars, Yorkie and Dairy Milk, have slimmed down, as well as how much more shoppers are now paying.

For subscribers only

 

‘I won’t get my vision back’: The lives ruined by weight-loss jabs

Two months before Diana Pardoe suffered an eye stroke that caused permanent vision loss, she had begun taking Wegovy. Now, she is one of hundreds of thousands claiming to have suffered side effects from GLP-1 drugs. In Britain alone, some 150,000 cases of adverse reactions linked to the medications have been recorded, and in the worst cases, pancreatitis, necrosis and even death can occur.

Continue reading

 

Your Saturday

 

Food for thought

Do you know what you’re going to eat this weekend? We’ve got you covered. Every Saturday, Diana Henry, The Telegraph’s award-winning cookery writer, brings you three recipes for a perfect weekend meal.

Moroccan-spiced quick pickle

Diana Henry

Diana Henry

 

I quite often think of asking people over for Sunday lunch but don’t always want to do a roast with all the trimmings – I want it to be casual. I have trouble sticking to this, though, the casual approach; I suspect many keen cooks do.

You kid yourself – as you add another side dish, or plan two puddings – that you are just being generous, but really you are just making things complicated, destroying the laid-back atmosphere. Is it a love of flavours? A desire for guests to experience different dishes? Or is it showing off? Whatever it is, resist. Let’s just enjoy the opportunity to have people gathered around the table, and do as much as possible in advance.

These “quick” pickles are a great grazing option. They are not proper pickles – you keep them in the fridge and eat them within a couple of days. I might serve them with bought dips – hummus, tzatziki and muhammara (a walnut and red pepper purée). Warm flatbreads are good as well.

Greek lamb giouvetsi

For the main event, consider lamb giouvetsi. People often think of lamb as a spring dish but in fact it’s great in September. Giouvetsi is a classic Greek dish where the lamb is slow braised then mixed with orzo – that tiny pasta shape – which cooks quickly and provides the starch element of this all-in-one-pot meal. You could make it on Friday or Saturday and reheat it for Sunday lunch, serving it with crumbled feta on top.

Easy almond and citrus cake with citrus syrup

This kind of meal doesn’t have to have a pudding that you’ve made yourself; you could just buy Middle Eastern pastries and make mint tea. If you do fancy baking, go for this – incredibly easy – Tunisian citrus and almond cake. This is the cake I have made regularly for 30 years. Hold on to the recipe to make again. It’s fine on its own – fantastically moist – but you can serve it with baked figs or, if you get good ones, fresh figs and blackberries.

With this trio of dishes you don’t wake in a panic on Sunday morning and think, “Why did I ask those people to lunch?” In fact, you can have a lie in.

Find me here every Saturday and in my Recipes newsletter, which you can sign up to here.

 

Your say

Food, glorious food

Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories.

Orlando writes...
Thanks for all your replies to this week’s newsletters. In Tuesday’s edition, I sounded a sceptical note about the Government’s plans for school dinners, in which lentils are to be given a starring role. What’s the point of foisting virtuous meals on pupils if they won’t be eaten?


 

Perhaps I was being unfair. Debbie Carpenter writes: “When I worked in local primary school kitchens in the early 1990s, the cook made a delicious cheese and lentil quiche, which the children loved. I use the recipe to this day and my grandchildren love it. Lentils can be fantastic. If they are used wisely, not exclusively, within the school menu they will be a great addition.”


 

Patrick Hodgson, meanwhile, recalls a less studiously health-conscious age: “School meals – didn’t you just love ’em? Actually, I enjoyed mine – typically something with mince and something green and orange, followed by rice pudding with a blob of jam, and all cooked from scratch on the premises.”


 

Then, on Wednesday, we tackled one of the trickier questions in the age of “boomerang children”: should graduates returning to their parents’ home pay rent?

Sylva Betts points out that the question is not new: “When I started work in 1960 I gave all my earnings, £7 per week, to my mother, and she gave me pocket money. I never questioned this until a colleague, earning the same, said she paid her mother £10 per month. I told my mother I would be doing the same from the following month. She was not amused.”


 

Lesley adds: “After I left school I lived at home for a year until I moved out. I paid ‘rent’ during that time, but when I got married my mother gave it back to me to buy my wedding outfit (a suit and hat).”

That’s all from me for this week, folks. I’ll be back on Monday to bring you the best Telegraph talking points. In the meantime, you can contact me here.

Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name.

 

Puzzler’s corner

Welcome to Andrew Baker’s Saturday quiz. Test your knowledge below to see if you have been paying attention to our newsletters this week...

1. Who, according to his mother, was a genius by three years of age?

2. This week in 1901, who was sworn in as the youngest person to become US president?

3. Which veteran singer was described as “the first postmodern tough cookie”?

4. A skeleton which may be that of Count D’Artagnan, companion of The Three Musketeers, has been excavated in a church in which Dutch city?

5. A breeding colony of which aquatic animals has become an obstacle to the proposed asylum camp at Piddington in Oxfordshire?

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.

Panagram

Yesterday’s Panagram was VELODROME. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.

Plus, can you tackle The 1% Club? Scroll down to see if you got the questions right – and play for free on our website and app.

 

On this day

1893 | New Zealand becomes the first country to grant all women the right to vote

1975
| Fawlty Towers premieres on BBC2

2022 | Elizabeth II’s funeral (you can see our special edition, with 25 pages dedicated to the story, below)

Birthdays
: Jarvis Cocker (63), Nile Rodgers (74), Twiggy (77)

Telegraph front page
 

Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.

Chris Evans, Editor

Quiz answers:

  1. Elon Musk
  2. Theodore Roosevelt
  3. Debbie Harry
  4. Maastricht
  5. Great crested newts
 

The 1% Club answers:

  1. Four
  2. Bigwig
  3. Ellen
 

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