The Metropolitan Police have launched a criminal investigation into at least £500,000 of donations made to Reform UK by the mother of George Cottrell, the convicted fraudster at the centre of a separate row over unregistered benefits given to Nigel Farage. Investigators are examining potential offences relating to the “evasion of restrictions on donations”, including providing false information about the donor’s identity or the amount. The Bayeux Tapestry has returned to Britain for the first time in almost 1,000 years. Having been chaperoned from a secret location in northern France by a police guard, the 70m-long 11th-century embroidery arrived early this morning at the British Museum, where it will go on display from September. Former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe has died aged 78. The long-time Tory MP, who later defected to the Brexit Party and became a spokeswoman for Reform UK, enjoyed a memorable turn on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010. “Amid so many dreary politicians,” Piers Morgan wrote in a tribute, “she was a charismatic, combative gem.”

Beyond the usual melodrama over Donald Trump’s meeting with European leaders at this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, a question loomed, says Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal: “Is Vladimir Putin about to attack a NATO member state?” A month ago, I would have scoffed at the idea – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a costly disaster, hobbling the economy with fuel and labour shortages and rising prices, while Ukrainian drones penetrate ever deeper into the Russian heartland. And yet, after conversations with political, military and intelligence leaders across Europe, I believe the possibility is “real and rising”.

Some Americans – including, possibly, President Trump – may smirk at the idea of Putin taking a shot at some “feckless Europeans” who haven’t been paying their way on defence. This is foolish. Putin may never get a better chance to slay the old foe. Trump has only a couple of years left in office, and who knows how his successor will feel about Russian aggression. What better boon to a Russian strongman whose last entanglement is rapidly losing public support than planting a flag in some NATO field? And this isn’t idle speculation: last week Polish media reported that US intelligence had warned Warsaw that Russia might attack. Last month a senior military figure in NATO identified multiple risks, including a Russian seizure of islands in the Baltic and an incursion to “assist” the Russian minority in Estonia. Invading Ukraine is one thing, but if the Russians were able to land a clean punch on a member state and meet no significant response, it would be a “another hammer to the head of Western security and hegemony”.

Shortly after Nigel Farage announced that he was resigning to fight a by-election, says Tim Shipman in The Spectator, he received a call from his friend David Davis, who did the same as a Tory MP in 2008 to draw attention to the erosion of civil liberties. “Copycat!” said Davis. “This makes you my protégé.” Farage just laughed.

This week, says Masih Alinejad in The Free Press, the Iranian regime has released countless photographs and videos of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran, making it look as though the country has “come to a standstill to mourn its fallen leader”. This is far from the truth. So many have flocked to the coast that the highways out of the capital have been gridlocked, while those who remain report their neighbourhoods being empty. A luxury hotel on the Caspian Sea even posted photos of its sun-dappled, tree-lined streets, “packed with cars and guests”.

One of my many “unpopular and unpatriotic opinions”, says Sam Leith in The Spectator, is that the 9/11 terrorists won. Osama bin Laden’s maniacs changed history and cost the West an unimaginable sum – not just the trillions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” of spending the next 25 years terrified that some jihadi lunatics would smuggle box-cutters or explosive pants on to planes. Take the half hour that the “shoes-off, belts-off, laptops-out, full-body-scan routine” adds to each journey, multiply it by the five billion people who fly every year, then by 25, and you get seven million years of humanity queuing at security instead of doing something productive or fulfilling.

How depressing, then, that what bin Laden did to his enemies by design the EU is now doing to its friends by accident. The bloc’s new Entry/Exit System requires everyone with a non-EU passport – that’s us, alas – to be fingerprinted and photographed at European airports. It’s a sound enough idea, but they’ve made a “right pig’s ear” of the execution. Nobody considered the effect on airport queues, or whether the new database would mesh with dozens of national systems. So as the holidays begin, the continent’s busiest airports are seizing up, flights are departing half-empty and miserable passengers are slumped on their suitcases rather than “sipping piña coladas by the pool”. It’s the case against the EU in a nutshell: a half-baked scheme imposed by fiat, spreading chaos before anyone thinks to ask how it might work in practice. I would say “chalk one up for the Brexiteers” – but of course it’s us, not EU citizens, “waiting in those godawful queues”.

Muhammad was the most popular name for baby boys in the UK for the third year running last year, says The Telegraph, followed by Noah and Leo. Olivia topped the chart for girls for the 10th year running, with Lily rising into second and Amelia dropping to third. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Andrew plummeted to its lowest ever level, with just 127 born last year (level with Walter and Zorawar). And while there were 18 Donalds – the most since 2015 – for the second year running there were no Keirs. To see where your name ranks, click here.

JD Vance is a prepper, says Carlos Lozada in The New York Times. In his new memoir, Communion, the US vice-president writes that when he heard about a virus spreading in China in early 2020, he drove to a sporting goods store and bought 1,000 rounds of ammunition, then went to Walmart and stocked up with “enormous bags of rice and flour, 20 pounds of ground beef and excessive amounts of ketchup”. The cashier asked him if he owned a restaurant. “No,” replied Vance. “But the Chinese virus is coming.”

It’s a Turkish revolver, says Maira Butt in The Independent, one of which was given as a parting gift – personally engraved with their name – to each of the world leaders who attended this week’s NATO summit in Ankara. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s present came in a red box along with six live rounds and a note exempting the Turkish-made Gumusay .357 Magnum from export controls. The Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, says he only learnt what was in the box after landing in Belgium, and immediately handed it over to airport police. Keir Starmer has left his in Ankara to be decommissioned.