The number of children in poverty in the UK has reached its highest level since comparative records began in 2002.

In the year to April 2024, there were 4.45 million children living in a household of relative low income after housing costs are deducted – the government’s own standard measure for poverty.

The figure, released by the Department for Work and Pensions, is an increase of 100,000 children from the previous year – and equates to 31% of children in the UK.

The figure has risen sharply since 2021 and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) predicts 4.8 million children will be in poverty by the end of this Parliament in 2029-30.

It is calling for the government to scrap the two-child benefit limit in its upcoming child poverty strategy, and to pause the recent proposals for wider benefit cuts.

The two-child cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child, with a few exemptions.

The relative poverty definition – which is measured both before and after housing costs – refers to people living in households with income below 60% of the country’s median average figure.

Separately, the Scottish government has missed its legal targets for reducing child poverty for 2023-24.

“The latest data is a stark reminder of the scale of deprivation among families, with close to a third of children in Britain now living in poverty,” said Adam Corlett, principal economist at the Resolution Foundation think tank.

“This is before any additional impact from new benefit cuts and a weak living standards outlook, which are set to reduce incomes across the poorest half of working-age households by £500 over the next five years.”

Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, work and pensions minister Sir Stephen Timms said the figures “show just what a huge challenge” the “very high level of child poverty that’s left by the previous government” is for Labour.

He added: “We’re going to be addressing that”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed a shake-up to the benefits system on Wednesday. This includes halving incapacity benefits for new claimants, and tighter criteria around the Personal Independence Payment for those with long term physical or mental health conditions.

An extra 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, will be pushed into relative poverty by these changes, according to the government’s own impact assessment.

In the three years to 2024, the highest child poverty rates after housing costs were in the West Midlands and London, although London’s levels were among the lowest if housing was not factored in.

One in five families who had one child were living in poverty, compared with 44% of those who had three children or more.

The Resolution Foundation echoed calls for the government to scrap the two-child benefit limit and wants the government to extend free school meal entitlement to all families on Universal Credit.

When Labour took power in the summer of 2024, after the period covered by the figures, the prime minister announced the creation of a child poverty task force, promising to leave “no stone unturned” in tackling the root causes of the issue.

The cross-government child poverty strategy is due to be published in spring 2025.

“No-one should be living in poverty, and we know that the best route out of poverty for struggling families is well paid, secure work, a Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said.

“That is why we are reforming our broken welfare system so it helps people into good jobs, boosting living standards and putting money in people’s pockets,” they added.

When Cyclone Alfred barrelled over Australia’s east coast earlier this month, it also blew the government’s election plans off course.

Hoping to capitalise on some rare good news on interest rates, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was on the cusp of announcing an April polling date. Instead he had to pivot and focus on responding to the natural disaster. It was, one Labor Minister told me, a decision taken from him by “an act of God”.

You might say that’s been a theme of his government: big plans often derailed by unpleasant surprises – trying global economic conditions and a cost-of-living crisis which is battering many countries, foreign wars and tricky geopolitics, rising national divisions, and now giant storms.

Albanese, who leads the Labor Party, wants a second term to reset.

Standing in his way on 3 May is Peter Dutton – a conservative who leads the Liberal Party, the dominant member of the so-called Coalition with the National Party of Australia – who just two years ago polling indicated was deeply unpopular.

But the race between them is now so tight and the rise of independents or minor parties such that many are expecting a hung parliament.

So how has it unravelled for Prime Minister Albanese?

His victory in May 2022 was seen as a fresh start after nine years of conservative rule.

Climate action was big on the agenda, as was addressing the cost-of-living and restoring stability to the country’s leadership.

But the legacy he eyed for his government was on Indigenous affairs. He opened his victory speech reiterating a pledge to hold a historic referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, an advisory body that would inform the government on issues that affect First Nations people.

Albanese spent most of 2023 campaigning for a “Yes” vote. This was the moment, he hoped, that First Nations people would get constitutional recognition – finally catching up with other former British colonies – and that Australia would begin mending what many see as a very broken relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

But the proposal was decisively rejected, leaving many Indigenous people feeling disappointed and betrayed. Albanese was also left licking his wounds after a damaging campaign.

Some critics blamed confusion and misinformation for why about 60% of Australians voted “No”. But while Albanese was campaigning for the “Yes” vote, opposition leader Peter Dutton campaigned for “No”, attacking Albanese for spending money on the referendum while a cost-of-living crisis intensified.

“[Dutton] not only won on the referendum, but also he won on positioning Labor as the government that’s not completely focused on the issues that matter to Australia,” says Kos Samaras, political consultant and a former Labor strategist.

During Albanese’s tenure, interest rates have been put up 12 times (and cut once, in February), inflation soared post-pandemic, the country’s housing crisis deepened, and Australians increasingly felt stretched.

Though the prime minister would lay the blame for many of those issues at the previous coalition government’s feet, voters want to know who is best placed to deal with all of them now.

In Anthony Albanese’s victory speech in 2022, he said Australia was “the greatest country on earth”. Australian voters though are increasingly questioning whether that’s still true – and perhaps more importantly, whether politicians from traditional parties are the ones able to fix it.

So though many are disillusioned with Labor, this won’t necessarily translate as a vote for Dutton’s Coalition at the ballot box.

Support for minor parties and independents reached record levels at the previous election, and similar is expected this time around. If neither party reaches the magic number of 76 seats in the House of Representatives, which poll after poll paints as unlikely, independent candidates could be the kingmakers of any future government.

If that happens, Australia would be another page in a story unfolding all over the world – disenfranchised voters seeking more radical solutions and voting for change. In many places this is a real threat to democracy as people stop trusting the system.

But while Australia faces the same challenges as other parts of the world, a few quirks in its electoral system have thus far guarded against more radical swings that we’ve seen in other countries, like the US, France and Germany.

Experts all agree that mandatory voting is a key factor in Australia’s political stability. In the 2022 elections, just under 90% of the population voted – much, much higher than the average OECD turnout of 69%. The fine for not voting in a federal election is a mere A$20 but there’s a sense of duty here to go out and vote.

What that means is politicians don’t have to mobilise their bases – turnout is a given, it’s just about pushing your narrative. Where voting is optional, there’s a tendency for special interest groups to become overly influential as those who are less engaged decide not to cast a ballot. Plus, if everyone, no matter their politics, education or their wealth, goes to vote, it tends to pull the result towards a more representative centre.

“[Australia’s] elections are decided in the middle,” says the country’s chief election analyst Antony Green. “That means getting your message through those people who aren’t paying much attention.”

The other big stabiliser for Australia, say experts, is preferential voting – where voters effectively number their candidates in order of who they want to win. It’s why in recent years the Greens have emerged on the left and One Nation on the right but still, Labor and the Coalition dominate. Experts say preferential voting tempers the effects of polarisation and forces the two major parties to appeal to people who aren’t necessarily voting for them first in order to receive their next preferences, which also helps moderate policy.

While the campaign will focus on problems close to home, the candidates would be foolish to ignore the global political headwinds.

During last year’s presidential election, few analysts I spoke to seemed to think a Trump White House would massively impact Australia, this comparatively small and distant democracy.

But five months feels like a lifetime in today’s politics. Not a day goes by without Donald Trump making the headlines and Australians are tuning in to watch.

With Trump’s obvious disregard for longstanding alliances as well as constant talk of tariffs and trade wars, all this plays a part in Australians’ fears about their place in the world – and importantly, the future of what is arguably its most important diplomatic and military relationship.

Peter Dutton argues he’d be much better than Albanese at dealing with Trump. But there are doubts that anyone really knows how to handle this new administration – politicians of all stripes around the globe are feeling their way with how best to manage their relationship with the US.

With Albanese firing the starting gun today, Australians have just over a month of intense campaigning to help them determine who they want to lead them through the next three years.

While Labor’s handling of the ex-cyclone Alfred has improved its chances – the Prime Minister’s approval ratings have risen to their highest level in 18 months – polling in recent months has pointed towards a Dutton administration.

It’s still incredibly close, and the Albanese government faces the unenviable prospect of being the first which fails to win a second term since 1931.

I remember 1974 well. With inflation on the rise, the government had been locked in battle with trade unions over worker pay. The government appeared paralysed: stand up to the miners and strikes could shut down the power system, but give in and pay them more money and inflation would rocket.

And then the global oil crisis came out of nowhere. It threw economies, including Britain’s, into chaos. The government introduced a three-day week. Power cuts were common – we would be plunged into darkness without warning. And seemingly, the government just expected us to deal with it.

This was also the year I began presenting the BBC’s current affairs programme Panorama. We spent a lot of time debating these issues. People came on with all kinds of different ideas of what to do.

There were even suggestions that what the country really needed to take back control from the unions was a military takeover – a coup.

There was another idea out there too. It was proposed by the Conservative politician Keith Joseph and was entirely radical – so removed from the mainstream, in fact, that during filming of Panorama, Joseph turned to the production team and asked exasperatedly if they understood what he meant.

That idea was the free market.

This meant Britain departing from the post World War Two consensus that government should control the economy and that instead if you left the markets alone, they would deliver the country greater prosperity and security.

If, in 2025, the idea sounds anything but radical, that’s exactly the point.

What we saw in the UK in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher’s government was just how quickly the free market transitioned from a radical idea into the new reality. Then before long it became what many assumed was the system that would last forever.

US President Donald Trump is a billionaire businessman who has clearly done well financially out of capitalism. But suddenly, thanks in part to him, the free market system finds itself under assault like never before.

It might yet weather the storm. However others are asking if the free market system is fatally flawed and doomed to failure?

So much of what Thatcher did in the wake of her 1983 general election victory seems so obvious now. We take it for granted that private companies play a pivotal role in providing our water, electricity, gas, railways, ports and freight.

But at the time few believed it possible to do what she had done – it seemed like a fantasy world, completely detached from how things had been done post war.

I was six when the war ended. There was rationing – coupons that allowed you to buy meat or clothes, or of course, sweets. But out of these hard times and on the heels of victory, a new vision of society was emerging in Britain.

With Clement Attlee’s landslide election victory in July 1945, for the first time in Britain’s political history a majority cast their votes for a party ostensibly dedicated to socialism.

But more than that, a new consensus on how the country should run emerged, with those leading the Labour and Conservative parties singing from a broadly similar sheet.

“We have built our defences against want and sickness, and we’re proud of it,” was uttered not by a Labour prime minister but by Harold Macmillan, Conservative prime minister from 1957 to 1963. This had been how things were done.

However not everyone bought into the consensus. Antony Fisher, who was a chicken farmer, was exasperated by what he saw as the meddling of the Egg Marketing Board. He set up the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, inspired Keith Joseph and he in turn got Thatcher’s ear.

That the current assault on the free market is coming, in part, from a Republican US president seems all the more ironic given how popular Thatcher’s reforms were with the American right.

Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan shared a similar world view, and Trump has spoken of his admiration for the two, albeit with the caveat that he didn’t agree with some of Reagan’s trade policies.

Thatcher was convinced that the country would be much better off if gas and water and electricity were taken out of the hands of the state. And sold on the open market. The free market. Just like buying a loaf of bread.

The Thatcher government’s big idea was that they weren’t just going to sell the shares in state owned utilities to big businesses or investors. They were going to offer them to the British people.

In December 1984 shares in British Telecom (BT) went on sale. The next morning, the numbers were staggering: more than two million Britons were now BT shareholders.

And Thatcher began to realise that selling off these companies wasn’t just about breaking the shackles of government control. It could be something bigger – turning every person in Britain into a capitalist and in doing so making capitalism popular.

In Britain, by the end of the 1980s, the scale of transformation was staggering. The sum of £60bn was raised by selling off state run companies. Up to 15 million Britons were now shareholders.

Britain was embracing the free market. This wasn’t just an economic shift. It was a cultural revolution. A redefinition of Britain’s relationship with money, with government, and with itself.

And if Thatcher’s privatisation had given ordinary people the chance to buy shares, her reforms to Britain’s financial services sector in 1986, known as the Big Bang, gave ordinary people the chance to sell them too, to get a job in the previously closed world of the City.

There were many on the left for whom the principle alone of these reforms was something to object to. The assault on the free market from some on the right is not about the principles of the reforms, but the consequences.

At the core of Thatcher’s thinking was a belief that free market capitalism could work only if many people had a direct stake in it. And with share ownership of previously state run utilities, many people did. But before long, alarm bells were starting to be rung. And their chime has only gotten louder.

James Goldsmith was a businessman who had made a fortune by buying struggling companies cheaply, reshaping them to maximise efficiency and then selling them at a profit. The 1980s reforms were like manna from heaven for him.

But then he seemed to change his mind about things. In 1994 he told a committee of US senators that its premise contained a fatal flaw – that the system demanded maximum profit but to achieve maximum profit that meant severing the umbilical link with many of your own electorate.

“You get to a system whereby so as to get the best corporate profits, you have to leave your own country. You have to say to your own sales force ‘Goodbye, we can’t use you anymore – you’re too expensive’.

“You’ve got unions. You want holidays. You want protection. So we’re going offshore.”

Goldsmith was predicting that companies would take their business wherever they would make the most money. If you are a CEO answerable to shareholders that’s literally your job description. And the result, he said, would be job losses in the West, with communities collapsing.

And to make things worse, he argued that Britain had ceded sovereignty to the likes of the European Union and the World Trade Organization, with Britain binding itself to an economic system run by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, only adding to the sense of alienation felt in collapsing communities. And with global markets dictating policy. If an industry wasn’t profitable, it was left to die.

Today, the UK may be a global leader in science and financial services but is that of much consolation to communities where we once made things that are now made offshore?

Based on what I often heard in my many years touring the country presenting Question Time, I’m not sure it is.

Goldsmith would end up trying to go into politics. His Referendum Party was trounced in the 1997 general election but he had planted a seed. He had argued that the global free market path that Britain and the rest of the world was going down was dangerous. That it would spread division around the world.

Fast-forward nearly 20 years to 2016 and his warning came to pass. Britain voted to leave the European Union and the verdict could not be clearer: the Leave vote was highest in those left-behind communities, driven by those who felt globalisation was not working for them.

The dream of a nation of shareholders has soured too.

In 1989 Thames Water was privatised. We were promised lower bills, better infrastructure, less red tape and investment in a system fraying at the edges. It was investment that the global capitalist system was supposedly best placed to provide.

What followed was something else entirely. Debt ballooned and dividends flowed to shareholders. The company extracted profit while pipes leaked and sewage poured into rivers. And our bills now pay for interest on that debt – it feels like we’ve come a long way from Thatcher’s nation of shareholders.

Back in 1994, James Goldsmith had posited that the problem with the free market dream was that it didn’t protect the home base.

Now, there is someone else much more powerful who takes that view.

President Trump’s methods are so erratic that with him it’s hard to tell what is going on. His readiness to slap hugely consequential tariffs on countries that are both traditional foes and supposed friends at times defies easy explanation.

But what we can say is that he is trying to return to ideas that preceded the free market. He is trying to make America strong through protectionism, making it harder for anyone to simply sell anywhere.

There is an argument that if you take the long view then perhaps the free market period is the outlier. Britain itself had a long, long period of protectionism before it embraced free trade.

Tariffs are nothing new in world economic history and in a sense Trump is just trying to return the US to how things were, albeit in quite a chaotic way.

The reign of the free market is facing its biggest ever challenge. But that challenge is coming not from supporters of socialism who ideologically back a big role for the state. Instead, the challenge is coming from Trump, a man who is broadly speaking of the right and has no qualms with capitalism allowing people to become very rich.

That the challenge is coming from within is what makes it so potent.

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Ukrainians in the UK are losing out on job opportunities and homes because of uncertainty over how long they will be allowed to stay in the country.

They were initially given the right to live and work in the UK for three years and can apply for an 18-month extension 28 days before their original visa expires. The government said this provided “certainty and security”.

But some Ukrainians have told the BBC that employers are reluctant to hire them or landlords will not rent to them because their visa is due to expire.

One survey of 1,133 Ukrainians in Britain suggested 41% had lost a new job opportunity because of visa uncertainty, while 26% said their tenancy was not renewed.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham also found 22% of respondents said a job contract was not renewed, while 24% said they could not sign a new tenancy.

Arrivals spiked after the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which allows people in the UK to host those fleeing the war, was launched on 14 March 2022.

At the peak in May that year, more than 10,000 Ukrainians a week came, with a total of 300,000 offered sanctuary to date, according to the Home Office.

People were initially given the right to stay for three years, meaning the bulk of visas are due to expire in the coming months. The Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme opened on 18 February.

The government says Ukrainians retain their existing rights to live and work in the UK while a decision is being made on whether to extend their visa, which can take up to eight weeks.

However, charities say in practice some Ukrainians who are in the process of extending their visa or only have a few months left are struggling to find jobs or rental properties.

Mila, who lives in Atherstone, Warwickshire, with her 14-year-old daughter, is waiting for her visa extension to be approved.

The family must leave their flat by 25 April as it is being sold by the landlord.

She had planned to move to a flat closer to her job at a salon in Nuneaton but the agent told her she could not sign a six-month tenancy because her visa is due to expire on 12 April.

Mila said she had tried a number of different agents without success because of her visa status.

She told the BBC she was worried about the prospect of being left without anywhere to live, adding: “I can’t sleep at night.”

Tatiana – not her real name – struggled to find a new job after her contract as a lab technician ended, despite being highly qualified.

Over a six-month period she says she was refused for around six jobs because her visa was due to expire in July, with prospective employers citing uncertainty over whether her right to work in the UK would be extended.

One company asked her to apply for a visa extension immediately, but she was unable to because of rules stating applications can only be made 28 days before the original visa expires.

Tatiana, who has two sons aged 11 and 16, told the BBC the situation left her suffering from anxiety, for which she was prescribed medication by her GP.

Although she has now secured a new job, Tatiana still feels worried about her future.

“It’s incredibly frustrating to feel trapped in this cycle,” she said.

“[My employer] would love to offer a longer-term position, but the visa situation prevents it.

“We are all in a tough position, and I wish we had at least some certainty about the future.”

Olena – not her real name – arrived in the UK with her daughter, who is now 15, in April 2022 and their visas have recently expired.

She applied for an extension more than three weeks before the expiry date but they are still waiting for this to be approved.

Olena is a housekeeper at a hotel but her employer initially told her she could not work after her visa expires and would have to take annual leave.

She also receives universal credit as she can only work limited hours due to health problems. With her visa due to expire, her caseworkers wrote to her warning her benefits could be stopped, causing her further anxiety.

Rights to claim benefits remain while a visa decision is pending, according to government guidance.

Olena was only able to persuade her employer she could continue to work with help from the charity Settled, which also helped her to provide the necessary information to ensure her benefit payments continued.

Others told the BBC they had been informed by universities they would have to pay international fees as their visa was due to expire before the course began.

This is despite government guidance stating that those on visa schemes for Ukrainians should be treated as “home” students, who are eligible for financial support and domestic fees.

Settled said it had also seen an increasing number of technical issues which had left Ukrainians unable to prove their visa status or progress their applications for an extension.

It said an automatic visa extension would avoid these issues.

Simone Schehtman, who runs the Birmingham for Ukraine support group, said currently most visa extensions were being approved within a couple of weeks but there was concern that in the coming months the volume of applications could overwhelm the system.

“We’ve got about 100,000 Ukrainians about to submit their [extension application],” said Ms Schehtman. “It’s a complete disaster.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s illegal war, while also providing a safe and secure haven for those fleeing the conflict.”

The spokesperson added that the visa extension scheme allowed “a continuation of rights to work, live and study as well as access to healthcare and welfare support in the UK”.

In Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic circle, President Vladimir Putin vowed to “strengthen Russia’s global leadership in the Arctic”, while warning that “geopolitical competition in the region” was intensifying.

The first example he gave was Donald Trump’s idea to acquire Greenland.

But from the Kremlin leader there was no criticism of his US counterpart.

And that’s telling, as the White House and the Kremlin try to rebuild relations.

“In short, America’s plans in relation to Greenland are serious,” President Putin said in an address to Russia’s Arctic Forum in Murmansk.

“These plans have deep historical roots. And it’s clear that the US will continue to systematically pursue its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Аrctic.

“As for Greenland this is a matter for two specific countries. It has nothing to do with us.”

So said the president who had launched a full-scale invasion of a sovereign neighbouring country and claims to have annexed whole swathes of Ukraine.

When Joe Biden was in the White House, Moscow and Washington were vocal in their criticism of one another.

How things have changed.

Today Russia is promoting the idea of economic cooperation with the United States in an Arctic region packed with natural resources.

“We are open to considering different investment opportunities that we can do jointly with the US, in certain sectors approved by the Russian government,” says Kirill Dmitriev, President Putin’s envoy for foreign investment and economic cooperation.

Mr Dmitriev, who is also chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, has already been in talks with US officials.

“We are open for investment cooperation in the Arctic. That could be in logistics, or other areas beneficial to Russia and to the US,” Mr Dmitriev adds.

“But before deals can be done the war in Ukraine needs to end,” I suggest.

“Many people in the West accuse Russia of dragging its feet, showing no compromise or concessions, and just laying down conditions.”

“I am focused on economics and investments, so I don’t comment on political issues,” Mr Dmitriev responds.

“The only thing I can say is we have a very good dialogue, and I think it’s very important that the US is trying to understand Russia’s position.”

Moscow seems confident that it can woo Washington with promises of lucrative deals in the Arctic and across Russia.

That confidence is understandable considering how senior US officials have been repeating Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine and about Europe.

In a recent interview with former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff appeared to accept the results of Moscow-organised referenda that were held in Ukrainian territories seized and occupied by Russia.

These votes that have not been recognised by the international community.

In the words of one recent Russian newspaper headline: “US and Russian officials are now talking the same language.”

Are the Russian authorities at all surprised by the sea change in America’s Russia policy?

“[In America] there are two parties that compete with one another,” says Nikolai Patrushev, former head of Russia’s FSB domestic security service.

Mr Patrushev, who is now an aide to President Putin, is one of the most powerful figures in Russia.

While on the side lines of the Arctic Forum he tells me: “When the Democrats were in power, they took one view. The Republicans have another.

“It doesn’t mean that they agree with Russia’s standpoint. Only that they have their own, which they promote, and we can cooperate with them.”

I ask Mr Patrushev: “Do you have a sense that a new world order is being forged?”.

“We used to have a system where two powers dominated in the world. Then it was just one. Now we’re building a multi-polar world. But with its own peculiarities,” says Mr Patrushev.

In the centre of Murmansk, a giant inflatable whale has taken over one of the city’s squares.

Attached to wires, it’s bobbing over a sea of silver balloons designed to look like waves. The balloons are dancing in the wind beneath the blow-up beast.

It’s a giant installation. But then Russia has enormous ambitions, both for the Arctic and for the country’s relations with America.

The whale is attracting a great deal of interest with lots of families posing for photos.

It’s an opportunity to ask Russians whether they support the idea of economic cooperation with America in the Arctic and whether they’re surprised when Washington appears to take Moscow’s side?

Elina isn’t.

“Russia is strong,” she says. “You should always back the strong ones and go along with them.”

“We need to develop the Arctic,” Olga tells me. “Cooperation with ‘friendly countries’ is a good thing.”

“And do you see America as a ‘friendly country’?” I ask.

“You know what? I can’t decide.” replies Olga.

Meanwhile presidential envoy Mr Dmitriev is singing the praises of one particular American – Elon Musk – and counting on cooperation.

“We believe Elon Musk is a great visionary, a great leader and a very successful person,” Mr Dmitriev tells me. “Russia has a lot to offer for a mission to Mars because we have some nuclear technologies which can be applicable.

“There are some video conferences we believe will be upcoming with, let’s say, the Musk team.”

The lack of tangible information about her son Oscar – one of 238 Venezuelans deported by the US to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador – has driven Gertrudis Pineda to despair and left her at the brink of a breakdown.

She bursts into tears the instant we start to talk about Oscar.

“My son only went to seek the American Dream and now he’s trapped in a nightmare,” she sobs.

Oscar lived in Dallas, Texas. Gertrudis explains he laid carpets in apartments for a living: “He helped me by sending money for the family and to buy medicines for his father, who has diabetes.”

Gertrudis is 1,800km away from Oscar, speaking to me from the stifling heat of Zulia state, in western Venezuela.

Mother and son are separated by six borders and the impenetrable walls of the Cecot, El Salvador’s notorious “Terrorism Confinement Centre” – a maximum-security prison built to house violent members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.

The US government accuses the Venezuelans detained at the Cecot of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump Administration removed them from US soil under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, without due legal process, putting the US Justice Department in conflict with a federal judge who had ordered the planes carrying the migrants to turn around.

Gertrudis knew her son had been picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents but understood he was in Texas and most likely on his way to Venezuela.

She only found out he had been taken to the Salvadoran prison when her other son, who lives in Colombia, saw his name on a list shown on television.

Soon after, images of the 238 Venezuelans having their heads shaved were broadcast as they were being processed upon their arrival at the maximum-security Cecot.

Gertrudis could make out her son from a tattoo of a rose he has on his forearm.

“There are so many innocent boys in there,” alleges Gertrudis.

“They didn’t do anything wrong but they’re treating them like animals. Where are their human rights?” she implores.

The White House insists those deported to the Cecot were properly vetted. Trump Administration officials say they are all dangerous gang members – even though they have acknowledged in court documents that many do not have US criminal records.

While the Cecot is heralded as the solution to the region’s gang problem by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, and his supporters, it has long been described by activists as “a black hole of human rights”.

Gertrudis is finding it is also a black hole of information.

She has had no word as to her son’s wellbeing. The last time she saw him, he was shaven-headed, shackled and dressed in a white prison T-shirt and shorts.

She does not know if he is being kept in the same conditions as the Salvadoran prisoners who receive “not one ray of sunlight” as President Bukele put it when he first unveiled the controversial facility with its windowless cells and corridors.

Criticism of the deportation of the Venezuelans to the supermax prison has been growing not just in the US and in their homeland but also in El Salvador.

Salvadoran immigration expert Napoleon Campos thinks the move is unconstitutional and that the constitutional chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court “should act”.

“It should declare that bringing these people to El Salvador without them having committed any crime in this country exceeds our constitutional limits.”

He says that “anecdotal evidence” is stacking up that a significant portion of the 238 had no criminal records “not in Venezuela nor in the United States and much less in El Salvador”.

Mr Campos believes the idea of a black hole of rights in El Salvador applies beyond the confines of the Cecot – to the nation as a whole.

“El Salvador today is a deep black hole of illegalities, of violations of the fundamental freedoms and liberties enshrined under our constitution and under the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights,” Mr Campos insists. “There’s no other way to put it.”

The job of negotiating the country’s legal system in the name of the incarcerated Venezuelans has fallen to Jaime Ortega, who says he has been hired by the Venezuelan vice-president to secure their release.

“This case is very sad, and unheard of in our country,” he explains.

“We’ve only seen this in times of slavery, when people were moved between place and place for money. It’s unprecedented.”

He remains confident he can secure the Venezuelans’ release given the lack of clarity over the terms under which they were brought to the Central American nation: “There appears to be some form of agreement between El Salvador and the United States, the documents of which we can’t find, and we don’t have.”

He lays out how if El Salvador had been declared a “safe third country” for immigration purposes, he and others challenging the deportation could work under that clear legal definition. However, that is not the case.

He believes that, at the very least, the men should be placed in some kind of immigration centre ahead of an eventual return to Venezuela rather than in a supermax facility designed for hardened Salvadoran gang members.

President Nayib Bukele meanwhile has roundly rejected all criticism of both the Cecot and his wider crackdown on gangs in El Salvador.

He instead points to the changes his measures have ushered in to Salvadoran society.

It was three years ago this week that he declared a “state of exception” in the country, under which certain constitutional norms and rights have been suspended.

The measure, originally imposed for a month, has now been extended 35 times by a loyalist congress and there is no sign of an end in sight.

The crackdown continues to enjoy overwhelming support among Salvadorans, who re-elected the hugely popular president by a landslide last year.

In part, the reason can be found in neighbourhoods of San Salvador like 10 de Octubre.

Formerly controlled by the MS-13 gang, it was a stronghold of one of El Salvador’s most powerful criminals – Elmer Canales Rivera, aka “Crook”, who is now in prison in the US.

Simply entering the winding collection of backstreets at the base of a jungled hillside was impossible without the gang’s prior approval.

Even with their go-ahead, it would be an unwise move. Extortion, violence and intimidation were rife in this community, whose members were in constant fear for their children, their lives and their livelihoods.

The contrast with the quiet calm of a now-ordinary neighbourhood could not be starker.

Many walls and even trees have been painted bright pink and green, covering the MS-13’s menacing graffiti, and three soldiers stand in the shade holding automatic weapons, a sign of Bukele’s security strategy in action.

“We opened this store after [the state of exception came into force],” explains Roxana, who runs a small shop selling sodas, food and cheap clothes out of her front room.

“Things have changed a lot. We feel calmer having a business and we can stay open late.” The constant demands by gang members for extortion payments have dried up too, she says.

Yet there remains a pervasive culture of silence in former gang neighbourhoods.

Few residents were prepared to give anything more than monosyllabic answers about life under the gangs, and Roxana did not want to give her last name or have her photo taken.

“A lot of innocent people were rounded up too,” she says of President Bukele’s crackdown. “We know of quite a few cases from around here. There are still people in prison who we know shouldn’t be there. It’s unjust.”

At Cecot, thousands of prisoners have been held for years, many without trial. For Oscar, it has only been 13 days, yet for his mother, Gertrudis, it may as well have been a decade.

She is looking after his eight-year-old son in Venezuela as his father languishes in El Salvador.

She says she identifies with the mothers of Salvadorans who are locked up in the Cecot even though they have any discernible gang links, a situation she was unaware of before her own son was detained there with no apparent prior links to the Tren de Aragua gang he is accused of working for.

“My son is Venezuelan, not Salvadoran. So, what that president has done is kidnap our children,” says Gertrudis between heaving sobs.

“If they have carried out any crimes, then they should answer for them here in Venezuela.

“They must send them home.”

A high-powered delegation of US officials will spend Friday at a remote military base on Greenland in what is being viewed as the latest manifestation of American designs on the sparsely populated semi-autonomous Danish territory.

The US group includes Vice-President JD Vance and his wife Usha, White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

The trip marks the latest twist in what has become a tangled diplomatic journey that began with what was originally billed as a private tour by the US second lady.

Usha Vance was only supposed to travel to Greenland with her son to attend cultural events, like a dog-sledding race, and to spend some time visiting the capital of Nuuk.

The planned visit raised eyebrows, however, in light of President Donald Trump’s repeated comments that he would like to annex mineral-rich Greenland, which he says is critical for US security.

When it was then announced that Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor, would join the delegation visiting the island, the people of Greenland and Denmark appeared to grow uncomfortable. The American visits began to look less like a cultural interaction and more like an effort to meddle in the island’s internal politics by rallying support for closer ties to the US among the local population – at the expense of Danish sovereignty.

Greenland’s Acting Prime Minister Mute B Egede said it was a “provocation” and “demonstration of power”, and asked the international community to step up.

“Just for the record, the government of Greenland has not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official,” Egede said.

Ordinary Greenlanders also made their displeasure known, promising that the American delegation would not receive a warm welcome.

In Sisimiut, where the annual dog race is held, the mayor declined to set up a meeting with the second lady, citing next week’s municipal elections as a reason. A silent protest had been planned too, which would have seen locals turn their back on the American visitors – a potentially publicly awkward situation and poor optics for Mrs Vance.

“The US administration could see they were heading for PR catastrophe,” political analyst Noa Redington said.

“They were heading for a charm offensive without charm,” he said. “With people absolutely not happy to see Usha Vance or any other American politicians.”

A mere two days after Usha Vance’s trip was announced, the cultural itinerary was dropped, replaced by a single visit to a remote US military installation – Pituffik Space Base. And now, Vice-President Vance would be joining his wife.

Waltz was no longer listed on the itinerary, though he was added again later.

“Leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long,” JD Vance said, announcing his visit. “That’s been bad for Greenland. It’s also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction.”

Despite his comments, political leaders in Denmark cautiously welcomed the change of plan, and especially the limiting of the itinerary to just the US base.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said that while the vice-president’s presence may increase the formality of the visit, it was actually “masterful spin” which made the US “look like they’re escalating when they’re actually deescalating.”

“I actually think it is very positive that the Americans are cancelling their visit to the Greenlandic community. Then they will instead make a visit to their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” he said.

Vance is the highest-ranking US official to ever visit Greenland and while the limited scope of the trip has pleased Denmark, the fact that he is going at all underscores the high level of interest the Trump administration has in the island.

The US president himself has continued to reiterate his desire to acquire Greenland for national security reasons, saying on Wednesday that the US will “go as far as we have to go” to accomplish that goal.

According to Michael Williams, a professor of international politics at Ottawa University, Trump’s focus on Greenland appears to reflect a larger international strategy that involves exerting US influence over key territories within its sphere of geographic influence.

Canada and Greenland, both early targets of interest for the administration, occupy key Arctic waterways that are being contested by other global powers, like Russia and China.

Recent US moves could be viewed as an attempt to gain the upper hand in these strategic North Americans regions.

“You want to amp up the American presence in the north and its control over those northern reaches,” Williams said.

“If you can do that, then you can actually potentially control those northern waters in a much, much more direct way than has ever been necessary before.”

Attempts by superpowers to exert influence on less powerful nations echo the Cold War, when the US and Soviet Union faced off in global ideological competition.

But the focus of these efforts were typically non-aligned nations, not America’s closest allies and neighbours.

While the Vances’ trip to Greenland may be scaled back, America’s larger designs on the island do not appear to have diminished. Any sigh of relief in Copenhagen may be short-lived.

Vance’s visit to the Pituffik Space Base suggests a narrower focus on American security and military matters. The shortest route for Russian nuclear missiles to reach the US runs through Greenland, and Pituffik plays a crucial role in US missile defence.

“I’m sure he’ll say the security of Greenland is not safe in the hands of Denmark,” Redington said, adding this would “put even more pressure on the Danish government”.

“This is absolutely not the end of anything. It’s the beginning of something even more complicated than before.”

The healthcare watchdog has apologised over delays to the publication of its report into maternity services in Nottingham, which is subject of the largest inquiry of its kind in the NHS.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections – in June and July – found seven breaches of regulation in safe care and treatment at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust’s two main hospitals.

Overall, maternity services have been rated as requires improvement for being safe and well-led.

Following criticism from Donna Ockenden, who is leading the review into maternity deaths and injuries at the trust, the CQC has admitted the report was not published “as soon after the inspection as it should have done”.

The CQC ask five key questions – are services safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs, and are they well-led?

Following an inspection carried out on 18 June, 19 June and 3 July, the CQC’s rating for maternity services at both hospitals – the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) and City Hospital – being effective improved from requires improvement to good.

Caring was re-rated as good, while a responsive rating was not included in the inspection and remains good.

Following publication of its report, the CQC apologised for the delays, which senior midwife Ms Ockenden labelled “unacceptable” last month.

“Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report [was] not published as soon after the inspection as it should have done,” a CQC spokesperson said.

“The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits. The amount of time taken to publish this report falls far short of what people using services and the trust should be able to expect and the CQC apologises for this.”

The CQC said last year’s inspection of the trust was prompted by concern from staff.

The watchdog said the regulation breaches at the City Hospital related to infection control procedures, equipment safety, medicines and expressed milk storage.

Breaches at the QMC concerned infection control procedures, equipment safety, and medicines management and storage.

Inspectors noted learning opportunities were not always shared consistently with staff to promote good practice, and that low numbers of sufficiently qualified staff meant suitable resources were not always possible.

Other issues were that people were not always confident about raising concerns, medicine storage was put at risk by inconsistent temperature regulation, and checks on emergency equipment were not always completed.

An action plan focusing on these concerns has already been submitted by the trust, inspectors said.

However, the CQC also found most people felt the environment was safe and could mostly access care when they needed it.

Helen Rawlings, interim director of network operations in the Midlands at the CQC, said: “It’s clear that staff and leaders had worked hard to make some improvements, and since the inspection last year, leaders have assured us that further improvements have been made.

“We’ll continue to monitor the trust to ensure that more changes are made and embedded so women, people using the service and their babies receive the safe care they have a right to expect.”

Anthony May, chief executive at the trust, added: “I recognise that these inspections took place after colleagues in maternity services contacted the CQC directly. I want to thank them for their courage in speaking up.

“Importantly, the CQC found that women and families are treated with kindness and compassion, and that our environments are predominantly safe and deliver good outcomes.

“All breaches of regulation raised during the inspection have been addressed and we have provided the CQC with an action plan to assure them of compliance.

“We know that more must be done to improve the quality of care that women and families receive, but our communities can be assured that we are moving in the right direction.”

By the end of May this year, it is expected the maternity review of the trust will be examining 2,500 cases in which mothers or babies have died or been injured – the bulk of them between 2012 and the present day.

The increased caseload now means the inquiry is working to a new timeline. Instead of the final report being published in September 2025, it is now due to be delivered in June 2026.

Last month, the trust was handed the largest ever fine for failings in maternity care, connected to the deaths of three babies – all within 14 weeks of each other – in 2021.

By Rob Sissons, BBC East Midlands health correspondent

There is a question as to how valuable this latest snapshot into Nottingham’s pressured maternity units really is.

It is a snapshot but a somewhat historic one.

The CQC has apologised for the delay, blaming new computer systems.

It nevertheless offers an evidenced snapshot from outside the hospital trust. The latest report acknowledges some progress but demonstrates a service still short of where it needs to be.

It underlines what Donna Ockenden has always stressed – that turning around the troubled service was “always going to be a marathon – not a sprint”. That will not come as a surprise to campaigning harmed families, who continue to push for more accountability.

Sarah Everard’s parents are campaigning for tougher sentencing for serious violent and sexual criminals as part of a new campaign group being launched in Parliament.

Ms Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in London in 2021 – he was later sentenced to a whole life order.

Jeremy and Susan Everard said it was “important that sentences truly reflect the seriousness of the crime”.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said it has launched a review into sentencing to help ensure sentences are punishing offenders and protecting the public.

Mr and Mrs Everard said “although nothing can alleviate the sense of loss, it is a relief to us that our daughter’s murderer received a whole life order”.

They added: “It made us feel that the enormity of his crime was recognised and that our daughter’s life was valued.

“We know of other families in similar circumstances who have not had this small comfort.”

Another member of Justice for Victims is Paula Hudgell, the adoptive mother of double amputee Tony Hudgell, who lost his legs from injuries caused by his birth parents.

Tony was just 41 days old when he was assaulted in Whitstable, Kent, an attack which caused multiple fractures and dislocations, and blunt trauma to the face, leading to organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis.

He was left untreated and in agony for 10 days and because of the extent of his injuries both his legs had to be amputated.

Jody Simpson and her partner Anthony Smith were jailed for 10 years in 2018.

Ms Hudgell said: “When criminals abuse children they are creating a devastating impact for the rest of that child’s life.

“Many decades can be spent wrestling with the aftermath. Yet perpetrators can be out of prison living a free life whilst the suffering for the victim goes on for decades.

“We need a justice system that reflects that properly. I have seen so many cases of child abusers that don’t get a punishment that fits the crime. Let alone child murderers – they shouldn’t get out of prison in my view.”

The group includes the parents of four-year-old Violet-Grace Youens, who was killed by a motorist driving at more than 80mph in a 30mph zone in 2017, in St Helens, Merseyside.

And Ayse Hussein, whose cousin Mihrican Mustafa – known as Jan – was murdered by a convicted paedophile in 2018, has also joined.

Ms Mustafa’s body was found in a freezer in the killer’s flat in Canning Town, east London, a year after she went missing.

Katie Brett, whose 16-year-old sister Sasha Marsden, from Blackpool, was stabbed to death in 2013, said: “You hear about people getting a life sentence.

“The people who really get the life sentence are families like mine. In the end most murderers end up getting out of prison – sometimes as after as little 15 or 20 years.

“My sister had decades of life ahead of her.”

She added: “Surely if you take a life the starting point should be spending the rest of your life in prison? That’s what we wanted as a family and what would have been respectful of my sister’s memory.

“I think that’s what most families would want and I think most people would support that.”

An MoJ spokesperson said “delivering for victims must always be a priority” for the criminal justice system.

They added that the Lord Chancellor has also asked the Law Commission to consider whether homicide law and sentencing guidelines are working effectively.

The group was formed amid ongoing public concern about serious criminals escaping proper punishment, Justice for Victims said.

They will meet with cross party MPs and the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch on Wednesday.