Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has suggested that statutory maternity pay is “excessive”.
According to the government website, new mothers are legally entitled to 90% of their average earnings for six weeks, followed by a maximum of £184.03 a week for the next 33 weeks.
But appearing on Times Radio this morning, Badenoch – a former women and equalities minister – said the exact amount was “neither here nor there”.
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She said she was in favour of parents taking “more personal responsibility” rather than burdening businesses with more regulation.
The MP said: “Maternity pay varies depending on who you work for, but it is a function, where it’s statutory maternity pay. It is a function of tax.
“Tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This in my view is excessive.”
Asked by presenter Kate McCann is she believed maternity pay was excessive, Badenoch replied: “I think it’s gone too far the other way in terms of general business regulation.
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“We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of their own decisions. The exact amount of maternity pay in my view is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an environment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their individual decisions.”
But McCann hit back: “Well it’s here nor there for people who can’t afford to have a baby, isn’t it?”
Badenoch replied: “We need tohave more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”
McCann then told her: “Well that’s because women often had to not work. They had to stay at home. So is that the solution?”
The former cabinet minister then accused the interviewer of “putting words in my mouth”.
She added: “The point I’m making, Kate, is that we have got to a point where government isn’t working anymore and it’s tinkering everywhere. Me giving you an exact amount of what maternity pay should be when circumstances are different everywhere is not where we’re starting from.”
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Her comments soon sparked criticism from her leadership rivals.
Robert Jenrick said the Conservatives should be “firmly on the side of parents”, adding: “Nobody says it is easy having kids, why would we want to make it harder?”
Tom Tugendhat claimed he had not seen the context of her comment but that it is “important that women have the ability to choose how to live their lives”.
James Cleverly said: “When it comes to working mothers the cost of childcare is too expensive.
“It was government meddling that made it expensive.
“Let’s make childcare cheaper so that mums who want to can go back to work and can afford to do so.”
Badenoch later responded to the backlash, writing on X: “Contrary to what some have said, I clearly said the burden of regulation on businesses had gone too far… of course I believe in maternity pay! Watch the clip for the truth.”
The Canterbury MP announced her shock decision in an interview with the Sunday Times.
Duffield, a former Labour whip who was first elected as an MP in 2017, identified the decision to axe winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, as well as keeping the two-child benefit cap, as the main reasons for her move.
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In her resignation letter to the PM, she said: “Although many ‘last straws’ have led to my decision, my reason for leaving now is the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to, however unpopular they are with the electorate and your own MPs.
“You repeat often that you will make the ‘tough decisions’ and that the country is ‘all in this together’. But those decisions do not directly affect any one of us in parliament.
“They are cruel and unnecessary, and affects hundreds of thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents. This is not what I was elected to do. It is not even wise politics, and it certainly is not ‘the politics of service’.”
Duffield also condemned the “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” which has seen the PM, his wife and other senior Labour figures accept clothes, concert tickets and other hospitality from supporters.
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“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale, she said.
“I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
Duffield, who has clashed with Starmer in the past over the issue of trans rights, has grown increasingly critical of the prime minister in recent weeks.
In a direct attack on the PM, she wrote: “As prime minister, your managerial style and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long 14 years to be mandated by the British public to return to power.
“Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.
“How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?”
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Duffield added: “The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few.
“Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed. I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.”
If you’ve seen The Substance in a cinema over the last week, the chances are you’re still thinking about some of the film’s more extreme moments, mulling over the amazing performances from Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley or perhaps just trying to wrap your head around exactly what it is you just watched.
But if you’re anything like us, you might have also been pondering exactly how such a uniquely stylised film – with all of its stomach-churning body horror and physically demanding sequences – came to be.
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Well, you need wonder no more. From the script to the screen, here are 17 behind-the-scenes facts you probably never knew about how The Substance actually got made…
First of all, director Coralie Fargeat fully never expected Demi Moore to say yes when she first sent her the script
Coralie Fargeat and Demi Moore at the Cannes Film Festival
via Associated Press
“To be honest, when her name came up, you know, when we were thinking about actresses, I said, ‘Oh, forget it. She will never want to do something like that. Let’s not lose time, you know’,” Coralie admitted to People magazine at the initial premiere of The Substance.
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“And then I said, ‘Well, we have nothing to lose. Let’s just send the script’.”
And it’s a good thing she did, because we truly can’t imagine any of Demi’s peers playing Elisabeth Sparkle quite like she did.
Lead actors Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley already had a bit of a connection before they were cast
Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore forged a strong bond while making The Substance, despite only sharing minimal screentime
via Associated Press
Of course, Demi worked with Margaret’s mum, Andie MacDowell, almost 40 years ago in St. Elmo’s Fire.
However, there was another connection, as Margaret was also friendly with the Ghost star’s children, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Willis, so before they were even on set, she told People “we felt like we knew each other”.
In keeping with the types of films that inspired it, Coralie was keen to rely mostly on practical effects rather than computer trickery, CGI or AI
“I would sometimes suggest we use VFX and she would immediately say no, because she doesn’t like VFX,” prosthetics designer Pierre-Olivier Persin told GQ.
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“It’s really a movie about our bodies and about the reality of how we feel in our bodies. I needed to speak to the reality of the way our flesh can reflect our mental deformation, and I knew this had to exist for real,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
One of the film’s only bits of CGI came at the end, when Demi Moore’s screaming face was added to the back of Monstro Elisasue, a character who was otherwise achieved entirely with prosthetics.
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Meanwhile, realistic dummies were also constructed to help with the “birthing” scenes.
“We had quite sophisticated silicon dummies. We had two for the birth. We also had matching prosthetic makeup on the body double and some days we applied the makeup on Demi,” Pierre-Olivier told Marie Claire.
One thing that wasn’t real was the film’s Hollywood setting, though
Coralie explained to Rue Morgue: “We shot 100 percent of the movie in France.Cinema, to me, is the art of illusion, and that’s what I really enjoy when I make my films, to be able to cheat stuff.
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“So the house was entirely shot on a set, on a stage. A huge part of our prep was deciding how we were going to recreate the view of Hollywood [from Elisabeth’s large window]. It was a major research-and-development thing, thinking about different techniques and finally using the one that would give the most life and the greatest sensation of being inside the location.”
She added that rather than recreating a “realistic” Hollywood, she wanted to “create my version of Hollywood, the one that we all have in our unconscious minds”, putting together a “kind of enhanced vision of Hollywood that fit the story”.
Despite appearances – no, that is not Hollywood
Demi Moore’s prosthetics journey took her character through five different stage, with each part having its own nickname
These were known – pretty self-explanatorily – as “Requiem” (inspired by Ellen Burstyn’s character in Requiem For A Dream), “The Finger”, “Gollum”, “Monstro” and “Gremlin”.
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Before Elisabeth’s decline begins, Pierre-Olivier admits that he and Coralie clashed over how the character should look.
“I had a bit of a fight with the director because I told her that she had to be beautiful in the beginning,” he revealed to Marie Claire.
“It had to be like, ‘Why would they [fire her]?’ Because she has everything, she’s beautiful, she still has a show that’s going on very well – so I wanted for her to be sparkling and beautiful.
“Coralie was telling me, ‘No, no, no, she cannot,’ and I said, ‘Coralie, I have to have the time for her to go down deep before she has all the prosthetics and all of that’.”
Debates were had about whether Elisabeth should be glamorous at the beginning of The Substance
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If you’re wondering, all those prosthetics could take Demi Moore as long as six hours to put on
And then another two hours to take them off without doing any damage to the actor’s skin which, in the middle of a tightly-scheduled film shoot, is pretty important.
Margaret Qualley really struggled with her own prosthetics
“It was torture,” she told USA Today. “I had this awesome team of prosthetic artists that put it on me and took it off of me and got me through the day and made me laugh a couple of times while I was just on the brink of panic.
“I only have one eye. I can’t hear anything. I can’t move my arms. I’ve got these retainers in that are like too huge, they just kind of cut everything. It was grueling to embody.”
She added to The Times: “It was a torture chamber. The amount of videos I have of me like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ It was eight days. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot.
“We would just go until I had a panic attack. And the tempting thing is you want to peel it off, but of course you can’t do that, because you’ll bring your skin with you.”
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Margaret’s final transformation truly needs to be seen to be believed
Oh, and Margaret Qualley was also wearing prosthetics you mightn’t have even known were there
According to Margaret, Coralie Fargeat had envisioned Sue as a curvaceous “Jessica Rabbit”-type.
“Unfortunately there is no magic boob potion, so we had to glue those on,” she told The Times.
“Coralie found an incredible prosthetic team to endow me with the rack of a lifetime, just not my lifetime.”
Yes, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley really did have to learn all those aerobics routine
Margaret described her own dance sequences as “brutal”, and later admitted she needed a bit of liquid courage to get through the day.
“I just got wasted first thing in the morning because I was like, I can’t do this in front of everybody,” she told The Times, claiming a combo of tequila and weed helped her through that difficult day.
Margaret Qualley as seen during Sue’s aerobics set-up
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For Demi, the most difficult part was the infamous scene in front of a mirror
After setting up a date with an old school friend, Elisabeth is about to head out for the evening, when she becomes distracted with thoughts of Sue, and repeatedly removes and reapplies her makeup.
“It was very difficult,” Demi told Variety, describing the scene as “one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the film”.
Apparently, Coralie required as many as 45 takes for the shot, (15 for each of the three makeup set-ups), until it reached “a point where I couldn’t do it anymore”.
Elisabeth roughly removes her makeup in The Substance
In fact, Demi said, it was actually the make-up team who intervened, which Pierre-Olivier confirmed to be the case to Marie Claire.
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“My concern was she’s going to hurt herself. At the end, I did something that I never did on a movie, ever. I told Coralie, ‘That’s enough. You cannot do it anymore because she’s going to have a rash all around the face’,” he recalled.
“Coralie said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, no problem.’ But of course after the 11th [take], she said, ‘We are going to do it once again,’ and I took the remover pad and I squashed everything, and I said, ‘I removed everything, that’s over. You have already 11. You cannot have more because tomorrow she will have a red face.’”
“Normally you don’t do that! But it was too much because it was very hard on her skin,” he revealed.
All that hard work really did take its toll on both Demi and Margaret
Demi told the LA Times that for the week of shooting where she wasn’t needed on set, she ended up contracting shingles – “and I then lost, like, 20 pounds”.
For her part, Margaret said that eight days on set wearing enormous prosthetics led to her breaking out in “crazy acne for a full, long-ass time”, the effects of which she claimed could still be seen in her other 2024 film Kinds Of Kindness.
Despite all of the body horror in The Substance, Demi had a surprising choice when naming the ‘most violent’ moment of the film
Apparently, she still crings every time she sees Dennis Quaid eating all of that shrimp. And if you’re wondering, he ate it all for real, with Coralie estimating the actor probably ate around “two kilos” of shrimp while filming.
Dennis Quaid in Demi Moore’s least favourite scene from The Substance
“I will just warn everyone, the scene with Dennis [Quaid] eating the shrimp is by far the most violent scene in the whole movie. He ate, I think, four pounds of shrimp, tearing the heads off with sound effects,” Demi recalled to Seth Meyers, while gagging.
Dennis Quaid was actually a late addition to The Substance
He took over the role of Harvey from Emmy winner Ray Liotta, who was cast in the film in 2022, but died before filming got underway.
Ray Liotta
via Associated Press
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And his character’s name, Harvey, was no coincidence either
“Not at all!” Coralie said with a laugh when asked by Rue Morgue if the reference was unintentional. “To me, that’s part of the craziness of filmmaking – how with just a first name, you can characterise a whole type of person.
“It says so much about those stories that we heard everywhere, and then that kind of exploded with this specific figure, and now just this name, Harvey, can represent something that has existed in society on many different levels.
“I love to work with symbolism, and the symbolism of that name was definitely powerful and strong.”
But what about the other characters’ names in that case?
“For Sparkle, it was this idea to shine, to be under the light, and to have this moment that means happiness,” Coralie told Collider.
","type":"video","meta":{"author":"Collider Interviews","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5KD40UCDRUbR-od7sp9cuA","cache_age":86400,"description":"Writer-director Coralie Fargeat taps into something primal with her body horror movie, The Substance. \"I want to let this violence go out and hopefully make a change,\" she told Perri Nemiroff while at the Toronto International Film Festival for her movie’s North American premiere. Violence and beauty may not go hand-in-hand with a large part of society, but for people who identify as women and those who feel the weight of beauty standards, the two can often be synonymous when it comes to appearance and self-image. After all, beauty is pain, right?\n\nIn The Substance, Demi Moore, a Hollywood icon as both an actress and a standard of beauty herself, plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an A-list celebrity who’s peaked. Age has rendered her useless to studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid), but a mysterious drug offers Elisabeth a second chance. It’s a simple injection that allows her to live in a fresh, new, younger body — sort of. Sue, played by Margaret Qualley, is the cloned product of the drug and an ambitious and physically stunning 20-year-old. These two personalities must share their bodies, one week at a time, or risk biological consequences, but the desire for autonomy is dangerously strong.\n\nFargeat, Moore, and Qualley all stopped by Collider’s interview studio at the Cinema Center at MARBL to dissect and crack into their body horror feature. How did Fargeat land on this bloody and beautiful approach to the message she wanted to share? The auteur discusses wanting to purge her own self-doubts, and Moore and Qualley share how they discovered their characters through little dialogue and a lot of prosthetics, \"tears, and snot.\" The trio explain their own struggles with these themes, as well as lessons learned throughout production and tons more.\n\n#demimoore #interview #thesubstance #margaretqualley #actor \n\nFor interviews, movie reviews, and more visit https://collider.com\n\nFOLLOW US ON SOCIAL\nhttps://twitter.com/collider\nhttps://instagram.com/collider\nhttps://facebook.com/collider","options":{"_cc_load_policy":{"label":"Closed captions","value":false},"_end":{"label":"End on","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":""},"_start":{"label":"Start from","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":""},"click_to_play":{"label":"Hold load & play until 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“‘Elisabeth’ – I don’t know why it came that way, but probably because it had this iconic resonance of all the big movie stars in the past.
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“I remember at some point, somebody tried to make me, in production, maybe, change the name because we didn’t want to have legal issues, or I don’t know why. I said, ‘No. No way’. I don’t know. I knew this name was important.”
Interestingly, Coralie said she picked Sue as she felt it had an air of youthfulness, while Margaret pointed out that it also made the speaker make a sexualised mouth shape when saying the character’s name.
Let’s talk about that shower of blood in the finale, shall we?
“It was like a fire hose. It’s like what the firemen are using to put fire down; it was the same stuff with blood,” Pierre-Olivier told Marie Claire.
“I knew the scene needed to be massive,” Coralie also told Entertainment Weekly, estimating around 36,000 gallons of fake blood were used, which she said was essential “because the movie is about flesh, blood, and bones”.
And since we’ve gone this long without mentioning it – yes, those nude scenes were the real deal, and yes, that made things a little awkward on set
“We had to do these moments of switching, on this cold tile floor, and we’re both nude and laying there. There’s an aspect of it that was so absurd and funny,” Demi told Entertainment Weekly.
“Knowing that we had each other, looking out for each other, it’s just impossible not to find the absurdity of it humorous. At some point, I said, ‘Thank God we like each other, because otherwise this would be really awkward!’”
Well, he wasn’t trying to control the crowd as much as he was trying to control any messaging about people leaving the event early.
Rally size is something that is important to Trump — so important that he became agitated during a presidential debate on September 10 when Democratic rival Kamala Harris bluntly said that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
In Walker, Trump attempted to explain why rallygoers seemed to be leaving his event.
“The people that you see leaving? Because nobody ever leaves,” the former president said. “And when they do, I finish up quick.”
Trump then suggested that his staffers were to blame for the apparent departures, and claimed that people were actually lining up in the back for photos since he couldn’t pose for pictures earlier.
“These stupid people that are with me sometimes, they say, ‘Come on back,’” Trump said. “Thirty people, they get up and they go back. And they’re all lined up in the back waiting for me to take a picture because I couldn’t do it before.”
But Trump’s explanation for people leaving his rally wasn’t helped by the Harris campaign sharing purported video of (checks notes) people leaving his rally.
Not surprisingly, social media users soon mocked the former president for his questionable claim.
Having already split opinion right down the middle and sparked plenty of debate about its more graphic and salacious scenes, HuffPost UK managed to speak to the cast of The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story about the making of the show – and its aftermath.
Cooper admitted was “super nervous at first” but his meeting with the Menéndez brothers proved to be a “really amazing” experience.
He met with Lyle and Erik Menéndez, as well as a group of other incarcerated individuals, in the prison gymnasium, where the inmates shared their names and stories, and the brothers also gave a presentation about a “greenspace project that they’d been working on”.
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“The thing that I really wanted to do was look both of them in the eye and tell them that I believe them and that I support them and I’m going to do everything that I can to advocate for them – and that in playing the role I tried to be authentic and just to have integrity,” he told us.
Cooper added: “They’re both so kind, really upstanding individuals. They’ve done so much amazing work on themselves in prison.”
Chloë Sevigny, Javier Bardem, Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch on the set of Monsters
MILES CRIST/NETFLIX
Cooper ‘can understand’ where the backlash against Monsters has come from, but he stands by the show
“I don’t think it’s changed my point of view on the series,” he insisted of the ongoing controversies surrounding the show. “We always [intended to take] this Rashomon approach with all these different perspectives.”
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“Our goal [was always] to really show all sides of the case – in my eyes, I sort of always saw it as the audience is going to be the jury and they’re going to be able to determine what they believe at the end of the show.”
“But I can understand and sympathise with how that would be jarring for people to see these other perspectives, and so I understand why it’s getting that sort of response,” he added.
“I think there’s a lot of support out there for the brothers, which I love.”
Cooper Koch in character as Erik Menéndez
MILES CRIST/NETFLIX
Nicholas Chavez admitted that working for the role was actually a big part of helping him get into character as Lyle
“It’s said in the first episode that José thought they could become a great family like the Kennedys,” he said.
“I think that there were many expectations of perfectionism within this family and I wanted Lyle’s physique to reflect that as well.”
He also took a similar approach when it came to Lyle’s toupée
Nicolas says “mask work” was an important part of his creative process.
“During this time in his life there were many expectations to wear masks in many different facets of his life,” he explained.
“The toupée, for instance, became very symbolic of this for me, a mask that was imposed on him by his father, and just because symbolic of the image that the Menéndez family wanted to project to the world about who they were.”
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Nicholas Chavez on set with Cooper Koch in Monsters
MILES CRIST/NETFLIX
During the making of Monsters, Chloë Sevigny found herself becoming protective of her young co-stars
She says that between herself, showrunners Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the show’s directors and her co-star Javier Bardem, “we all really wanted to protect the boys, first and foremost” and “make sure that they felt safe”.
“They had a lot to carry in the show and we felt like they were internalising it in a way,” she claimed. “We wanted to make sure that they had a way to kind of let go and turn it off and not internalise it too much.
“Javier was really supportive of them, and encouraging them, and we were saying how great how they were in scenes, but also how important it was to sit down, talk about the work, talk about ourselves personally, about our families and be open with one another.”
Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menéndez
MILES CRIST/NETFLIX
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Chloë was also ‘really impressed’ with the support offered on set by Netflix
“The whole environment was very sensitive to the material,” she revealed. “Netflix has released a statement across the cast and crew that if any of the material we were dealing with was triggering in any way to anyone they would provide help and support for them.
Chloë revealed it this was “really the first time I had seen that on a set, and I was really impressed with the way they handled it”.
Javier Bardem had apparently been wanting to be part of a Ryan Murphy show since visiting his wife Penélope Cruz on the set of American Crime Story
Javier Bardem as José Menéndez
MILES CRIST/NETFLIX
“I had the chance to be on set back in the day in Miami for a couple of days, and I saw the quality of everybody behind and in front of the camera, and it was the first time I had access to a show like that on set,” the Oscar winner recalled. “Since that day, I was like, ‘I would love to make one of these’.”
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The Spanish actor previously collaborated with Ryan Murphy on the film Eat Pray Love, but Monsters is their first time working together on the small screen.
“I’ve known Ryan since 2009, and I know how loving and caring and what a beautiful person he is,” Javier added.
Despite all the controversy surrounding Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer, the show was a big part of Javier Bardem saying yes to Monsters
Asked if he felt trepidation about signing up to play José Menéndez because of the backlash against Dahmer, Javier claimed “it was the opposite for me”.
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“I binged the whole show in two nights, and I was mesmerised by the quality of it all,” he said.
“What I loved about it, among many other things, was what was underneath – the criticism of the homophobic, racist society back in the day, where if you were just a nice white guy, blond, you could more or less skate out of justice compared to other people.”
“And I knew that when he was bringing this show to us, there was way more than just a murder,” he continued. “It was something about trauma, abuse and relationships.”
Cooper Koch will ‘without a doubt’ be watching the Menéndez brothers’ authorised documentary when it debuts on Netflix next month
Erik and Lyle Menéndez pictured in court in 1992
via Associated Press
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“Absolutely,” Nicholas agreed. “I’m really excited to see the perspectives that they share with this documentary.”
“I’m quite glad that Netflix is giving them this platform,” he added.
Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story is now streaming on Netflix.
Maybe the Conservatives don’t really need a new leader, after all.
Remarkably, the party has actually gained seven local council seats in the past five weeks after suffering a landslide general election defeat less than three months ago.
That is despite the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the Tories are effectively leaderless at the moment.
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Rishi Sunak is still nominally in charge. But even those close to him concede that he mentally checked out of the job on the morning of July 5.
Indeed, the former PM will hardly be seen at the Conservatives’ annual conference in Birmingham, which kicks off on Sunday. He will address a members-only reception that evening, and is expected to play no further part in the proceedings.
The Conservatives’ poll ratings have recently ticked up slightly, although this has more to do with the Labour government’s ongoing woes than a sudden wave of affection for the Tories.
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Polling by Savanta, seen by HuffPost UK, confirms that the general public have stopped paying attention to the party.
Given a choice of who would make the best opposition leader, Sunak, Nigel Farage or Ed Davey, the most popular answer was “don’t know”.
Emma Levin, associate director at Savanta, said: “There is clearly a big gap in British politics for an opposition politician to properly take Keir Starmer to task. But that hasn’t happened yet.”
One former Tory cabinet member, who is yet to decide who to back in the leadership race, told HuffPost UK that the conference is an opportunity to show the public that the party still exists.
“Labour being so shit has just overwhelmed everything,” he said. “I’m genuinely surprised that they’re making a lot of very basic mistakes.
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“People have forgotten all about Rishi Sunak. It has all been about Labour and how bad they’ve been.”
The MP said he hoped that one of the four remaining candidates may emulate David Cameron, who used the party conference in 2005 to destroy his more-favoured rival, David Davis.
“This year’s conference is about bringing the leadership contest back to centre stage, and highlighting what the differences are between the contenders.
“We’ll be looking to see how they perform, whether they commit any gaffes and whether any of them can do a Cameron-esque performance that blows everyone else away.”
Under the rules of the contest, the remaining four will be whittled down to three and then two by a couple of ballots of Tory MPs when Westminster returns the week after next. It will then be up to the party’s members to decide the winner, who will be announced on November 2.
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The contenders: clockwise from top left, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly
Former immigration minister Jenrick is now the bookies’ favourite, overtaking the previous frontrunner Badenoch.
One of his supporters said: “There is a lot of momentum behind Robert’s campaign, but he’s not taking anything for granted, he’s going to keep working hard to persuade MPs to support his positive case for change.
“He’s the only candidate who can win back voters on the left and right with his focus on the big issues and his serious, credible answers on the key challenges of the day, such as immigration, NHS reform and growing our economy.”
But a Badenoch campaign source insisted she was very much still in the race.
He said: “Kemi has been touring the country solidly for the past few months, going from Conservative association to Conservative association and getting an amazing reception from the members.
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“All the independent polling puts her way out ahead with our membership. This conference is a chance to show MPs she is the members’ choice – the one with the star quality to cut through as a leader of the opposition and take the fight to Labour.”
Cleverly, a former party chairman, foreign secretary and home secretary, is seen by many as the dark horse of the contest, with even a senior figure in a rival campaign admitting he is “under-priced” by the bookies.
A source on his campaign described the conference as “a home fixture”, given his popularity with the party’s rank-and-file.
“He is a party man who loves campaigning and engaging with the activists and members – and he gets a consistently good reception from them wherever he goes, mainly because he knows half of them,” the source said.
“His approach is to engage as much as possible with the members, to set out his pitch as the unity candidate and the most experienced candidate who is ready to hit the ground running from day one as leader.”
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It is barely 12 weeks since the Tories were reduced to just 121 MPs in the House of Commons, a statistical irrelevance when compared to Labour’s 411 and fewer than 50 seats ahead of the Lib Dems.
Whoever wins the leadership race faces a monumental task in trying to return the party to power at the next election.
Nevertheless, there remains a flicker of optimism among the party that the new Labour government’s struggles are not just a blip, but a sign that their seemingly-impregnable Commons majority could be wiped out at the first attempt.
They believe there is some light at the end of a very long tunnel. Whether it turns out to be an oncoming train remains to be seen.
While Dame Maggie will be remembered for a variety of eclectic roles she played over the course of her decades-spanning career, in her later years, she was best remembered for her work in Downton Abbey.
Her performance as the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in the hit period drama earned her no fewer than three Emmy wins, with her co-stars and colleagues among those to pay their respects on Friday.
The stars of Downton Abbey in the poster for the 2019 film
Focus Features/Kobal/Shutterstock
Dame Maggie’s on-screen son Hugh Bonneville told Deadline: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.
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“She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.”
Co-star Michelle Dockery also told the outlet: “There was no one quite like Maggie. I feel tremendously lucky to have known such a maverick. She will be deeply missed and my thoughts are with her family.”
Dame Maggie Smith and Michelle Dockery
Jaap Buitendijk/Focus/Kobal/Shutterstock
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has also paid his respects, saying: “Maggie Smith was a truly great actress and we were more than fortunate to be part of the last act in her stellar career.
“She was a joy to write for, subtle, many-layered, intelligent, funny and heart-breaking. Working with her has been the greatest privilege of my career, and I will never forget her.”
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Dame Maggie’s on-screen career began in the late 1950s, with the British star landing her first Oscar nomination in 1969 for a movie adaptation of Othello.
Four years later, she would land her second nomination and first win for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, with a second Oscar following in 1979 for California Suite.
Her other notable movie roles included the comedies Sister Act and The First Wives Club, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Lady in the Van and the Harry Potter series, in which she played Hogwarts professor Minerva McGonagall in all eight films.
We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.
If you’ve never heard of adaptogenic coffee before, I understand ― I was in the same boat until about two weeks ago.
But according to London Nootropics, who produce several varieties of the stuff, it’s pretty simple. The term refers to regular java mixed with other ingredients, like mushrooms.
They’re designed to counterbalance the jitter-inducing effects of caffeine while adding complementary and additional powers to the hot drink: lion’s mane mushroom, found in the brand’s Flow coffee, is meant to “support memory, focus and concentration”.
I’ll be honest: I’m not usually one for supplements or “superfoods,” and I was a little sceptical of the promises adaptogenic coffee made.
London Nootropic’s Mojo coffee, which is “designed for physical endurance, strength and vitality” promised to perk me up without the coffee shakes, while their Zen blend said it would make me feel “calm and alert.”
It all sounded too good to be true.
But looking at the site’s rave reviews (it’s got a 4.8-star average rating from over 8,000 reviews) and considering how terrible my energy levels have been recently, I thought I’d give them a try.
After all, I figured that a sceptic unwilling to test their beliefs is just as bad as a mindless trend follower. Plus, I really liked the branding.
As if to test my decision, I proceeded to have the worst sleep of my life ahead of a very early, very intense 6am workout. So yes, Mojo was my first choice.
If I’m honest, I was craving my beloved French press coffee to get me through the morning ― but in the interest of getting an unadulterated result, I tried the Mojo and nothing else (it’s “designed for physical strength [and] endurance” after all).
I opened the instant sachet and emptied it into my cup. It smelled slightly sweeter and nuttier than regular coffee and was way quicker to make than my usual cafetière kind.
The taste was a little more floral and funky (in a good way – a bit like matcha), thanks to the additions of energy-boosting ginseng and Cordyceps mushroom.
London Nootropics advises adding milk to the coffee, which I didn’t read ― I wish I’d tried it that way because I can imagine it tasting like a hazelnut latte, but it’s still impressively smooth without.
The taste was good, but its effects on my workout were even better. I went from as bedraggled as you can see me below to happily sweaty, despite having had the worst sleep I’d faced this week, my gym session was the best I’ve had in ages.
It seems I’m with the reviewers on this one. I’d give it a solid 9/10 for its energy boost and 8/10 for taste ― extra points for my lack of caffeine headache.
Amy Glover
Later the same day, I was trawling through my inbox when I realised I should probably try their Flow option.
My midday work slump was happening later than usual, but there was no denying it, I needed something to get me through the rest of the day.
Their Flow offering said it’d “help you discover motivation, mental clarity and focus” while also “reducing procrastination” thanks to its lion’s mane and Rhodiola add-ins.
Again, the smell was slightly sweeter than I’m used to ― it tasted a bit like rosewater combined with some nutty add-ins, which is nicer than I’m making it sound.
I don’t think it led me to become a hyperactive writing machine, but it was enough to get me to manage my tasks well for the rest of the day while feeling pretty good about myself.
Given that I’m usually null and void past three in the afternoon, that’s a huge win. I’d give it a 9/10 for perking me up at work and an 8/10 for the taste.
Amy Glover
It took until Wednesday for me to try the brand’s Zen coffee, which promised to relax, destress and “balance” me.
I thought I’d try it in the evening because I couldn’t un-frazzle myself from a busy day and frankly wanted to try anything I could.
If (like me) facing the smell of coffee last thing is not exactly your ideal routine, good news ― this one had a lovely cocoa aroma, and it tasted a bit like it too.
I reckon if I had to mix milk into one of these, it’d be this one, but as it was I enjoyed the non-bitter, chocolatey taste.
I don’t know if it was the routine, the hot drink, or just taking the time for myself, but I agree again!
My mind usually races for hours after I finish my day, but this helped me to switch off (though you shouldn’t drink anything with caffeine too close to your bedtime).
It’s a 9/10 for taste and an 8.5/10 for calming me, I think.
The brand uses what it calls “barista-grade” coffee in all of its products, which might be why they don’t taste “off,” and they don’t use any artificial flavourings.
The best thing about them is the lack of those coffee jitters and headaches, which I hadn’t realised were so bad until I’d gone without them.
I’d recommend them with one caveat; the sachets can run a little pricey at around £1 a cup or 80p for a sachet in their huge box, which is undeniably bougie.
But if you want to give your health-conscious friend a gift or try the coffee yourself, we have a 15%-off code ― type HUFFPOST at checkout to get the discount until the 15th of October.
A former Tory chair has quit the party because it has become so “far right”.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said she had decided to give up the Conservative whip in the House of Lords “with a heavy heart”.
In a post on X, she said: “This is a sad day for me. I am a Conservative and remain so but sadly the current party are far removed from the party I joined and served in cabinet.
“My decision is a reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities. A timely reminder of the issues that I raise in my book Muslims Don’t Matter.”
Baroness Warsi was made a life peer in 2007 and was Tory chair alongside Lord Feldman between 2010 and 2012.
A close ally of David Cameron, she also served as minister without portfolio, minister for faith and communities and a Foreign Office minister during her time in government.
However, in recent years she has been a consistent critic of her party, especially its treatment of Muslims.
We all know that healthier lifestyles will benefit our physical and mental health in many ways, but between our busy lives and understanding that rest is equally important, it can be hard to identify how exactly to start living a little healthier.
However, the stats are hard to ignore, and a recent study published by the BMJ Evidence-Based Journal a healthy diet can add up to 5 years onto your lifespan and even offset the impact of harmful genetic conditions by 62%.
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HuffPost UK spoke exclusively with Joanna Dase, a global fitness coach at thwomen’s health and fitness organisation Curves, to learn more about how we can take small steps to make a big difference to our wellbeing, and live a little longer.
How to improve your lifespan in eight easy steps
Take the hilly route
Listen, it doesn’t appeal to us either, but by choosing a hillier route instead of a flatter path, you’re doing wonders for your body.
Dase said: “Whether its during your commute or a casual walk, climbing at an incline helps to challenge your cardiovascular system and helps you burn more calories.
“As lung health improves over time, the risk of chronic lung and heart disease decreases due to better oxygen delivery throughout the body. Oxygen is vital for energy production, so this will help combat symptoms of fatigue too.”
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Plus, walking downhill also has health benefits.
“Downhill walking trains your body in deceleration and makes use of different muscles and joints. As people age, downhill walking is important as it can help prevent injury.”
Develop a consistent sleep routine
Many of us are guilty of letting our sleep habits fall by the wayside, but according to Dase, resting is a key to staying healthy.
She explained: “During deep sleep, the body produces cytokines, proteins that fight infection and inflammation. By getting eight to nine hours of sleep each night, the immune system can be strengthened.
“Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and stroke. To ensure your body properly recharges and gets enough rest, create a calming pre-sleep ritual consisting of mindfulness, reading and self-care rituals.”
Unfortunately you should also avoid technology in the evening to signal to your body that it’s time to wind down.
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Goodbye, late-night Wikipedia scrolls.
Swap pudding for a starter
Dase said: “Instead of finishing your meal with a sugary dessert, opt for a healthy starter.
“This could be a small salad, a bowl of soup, or a serving of vegetables. When overconsumed, processed desserts such as ice-cream, cake and cookies have been linked to a variety of health issues including obesity, heart disease and diabetes.”
By starting your meal with a nutritious starter, you’ll help to control your appetite and make overeating during the main course less likely.
Dase also pointed out that dessert can still be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet – but focusing on nutrient-rich foods throughout the day is essential for your wellbeing.
Limit screen time
Dase says that even taking 15 minutes away from your phone as a “digital detox” can be very beneficial and allow for a mental reset.
She explained: “Excessive screen time can lead to a cognitive overload, decreasing attention span and affecting sleep quality due to blue light exposure. This can also increase stress levels, contributing to health conditions such as depression and anxiety.”
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She recommended setting boundaries with your phone which could include no phone during mealtimes and before bed.
“During these time periods, engage in activities that stimulate the mind such as reading or problem-solving with puzzles, wordsearches or sudoku,” she advised. “This will help maintain cognitive health and reduce the risk of cognitive decline as you age.”
Try a bodyweight circuit
Dase said: “Bodyweight circuits are a great way to workout and improve overall fitness when you don’t have time to travel to the gym.
“A 30-minute full body workout can be done with no equipment at home, consisting of exercises such as push-ups, glute bridges, plank and squats in your routine. This will help improve your balance and co-ordination as you age, and help with healthy weight management.”
She recommends following quick workouts online with a certified coach to guide your training. Start with two to three times a week, and gradually increase up to five times a week as you get stronger.
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Pack in protein
According to Dase, protein has a higher thermic effect compared to fats and carbohydrates, meaning your body uses more energy to digest it. This increased energy expenditure can help boost your metabolism which means your body can burn more calories while at rest.
She added: “As well as this, as you age, maintaining muscle mass becomes increasingly important for mobility. Protein helps preserve muscle mass, decreasing your risk of falls and fractures as you get older. Also, adequate protein intake aids the immune system in producing more antibodies to fight off infections.
“As a general rule, most adults need around 0.8grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. Foods rich in lean protein include grilled chicken, fish, eggs, tofu, chickpeas and lentils.”
Dase recommended eating more protein in the morning to help regulate blood sugar levels and set you up for a day of steadier energy.
Join a local club
Dase said: “Joining a local club might seem like a daunting, large task to undertake at first but it’s often as simple as signing up and attending a meet-up in your area. Social connections are essential for our mental and emotional wellbeing.”
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This is true. Social isolation has been linked to increased risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, and anxiety. Therefore, chronic loneliness can be crippling and extremely harmful.
“Whether it’s joining your local fitness club, a book club, or a volunteer group, socialising with others fosters a sense of belonging and reduces feelings of loneliness.”
Make sure you get regular check ups
Dase advised: “Routine screenings and tests can identify risk factors for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and cancer before they become more serious, so it’s important to prioritise checkups in your calendar.
“Regular discussions with a healthcare professional about your lifestyle habits can provide tailored guidance to help you live a longer, happier and healthier life.”
