Around 900 small boat migrants will be housed in army barracks in Inverness and East Sussex from next month as the government aims to end the use of asylum hotels. They will be the first of up to 10,000 migrants the Home Office hopes to house on military sites as it works with the Ministry of Defence to find more disused locations. Around 150,000 homeowners would be hit by a “mansion tax” that Labour is reportedly considering ahead of next month’s budget. Under the proposal, higher-value property owners would face an annual 1% levy on the portion of the home’s value above £2m. One longer walk a day is better for you than lots of short strolls, according to a new study which tracked the health of more than 33,000 people over eight years. Those who walked for at least 15 minutes without stopping – around 1,500 steps – had a lower risk of heart problems than those walking in quick bursts.

President Xi’s obsession with the Soviet Union

“The purges have been brutal and spared no one,” says Le Monde. Three days before the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee plenary session last week, nine of the country’s top generals fell to “corruption investigations”. Among them was the number two in the whole Chinese military, second only to Xi Jinping. He Weidong was a longstanding ally of the president’s, having served in Fujian province, across the water from Taiwan, when Xi was in charge there. Also removed were Admiral Miao Hua, who until 2024 oversaw party loyalty and recruitment for the world’s largest military, and General Lin Xiangyang, who was responsible for “preparations in case of war against Taiwan”. Previously, in 2024, authorities arrested two successive defence ministers, and a corruption drive in 2023 dismantled the entire missile force.

It’s tempting to view these endless purges as a sign of weakness – of a president’s inability, after 13 years of consolidating control, to choose the right people and stamp out corruption. “Xi does not see it that way.” For him, public purges demonstrate his absolute power. They signal that trust is never guaranteed, and that if the army – “and therefore China itself” – is found to be unprepared, then the boss will remedy the situation by any means necessary. Xi is obsessed with the idea that the Soviet Union collapsed because of a “relaxation of elite discipline and tight social control”. He came to power after three decades of China opening up to the world, which allowed it to modernise but also brought, in his view, “corruption, liberal ideas and the party’s loss of control over the individual”. He has made it his mission to “correct what needs to be corrected”.