First King George III. Now Sir Keir Starmer.

Citing the American revolution while misspelling “Britian”, Donald Trump’s campaign has filed an extraordinary complaint against the UK’s Labour party for what it claims is “interference” in the US presidential election.

The Trump campaign alleged that in recent weeks, Labour recruited and sent party members to campaign for his opponent, Kamala Harris, in critical battleground states in a bid to influence the 5 November election.

“When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them,” says a letter from Trump’s legal team to the Federal Election Commission in Washington.

“This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britian” – an incorrect rendering of “Britain”.

It is understood that volunteers are campaigning in the US in their own personal time, rather in their capacity working for the the Labour party.

The letter goes on to request an immediate investigation into “blatant foreign interference” in the election in the form of “apparent illegal foreign national contributions made by the Labour Party of the United Kingdom” and accepted by Harris’s campaign committee.

It also refers to a report in the Washington Post that claims advice has been offered between Labour and the Harris campaign, and other reports regarding meetings between senior Labour staff and the Democratic campaign.

Those referenced in the letter include Matthew Doyle, Downing Street director of communications, and Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff.

The complaint references a social media post, which appears to have been deleted, in which Sofia Patel, head of operations at Labour, posted on LinkedIn last week that 100 current and former party staffers were headed to the US to campaign for Harris.

The letter refers to a “volunteer exemption” in US elections which means foreign nationals can volunteer, but the letter states “they may not be compensated, foreign nationals may not make expenditures, and they may not direct or control activities of US campaigns”.

Last week’s post received a swift backlash from Republicans, with far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene writing on X that “foreign nationals are not allowed to be involved in anyway in US elections”.

And Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur backing Trump, wrote on X, the social media platform he owns: “This is illegal” – only to delete the post after a community note pointed out there is no law preventing foreigners from participating in unpaid door-knocking.

The Trump campaign followed up on Tuesday with its legal complaint. Susie Wiles, co-manager of the campaign, said: “In two weeks, Americans will once again reject the oppression of big government that we rejected in 1776. The flailing Harris-Walz campaign is seeking foreign influence to boost its radical message – because they know they can’t win the American people.

“President Trump will return strength to the White House and put America, and our people, first. The Harris campaign’s acceptance and use of this illegal foreign assistance is just another feeble attempt in a long line of anti-American election interference.”

Starmer, the British prime minister, met Trump, the former US president, during a trip to New York last month. Starmer visited Trump Tower, saying he wanted to meet Trump face to face because “I’m a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage”.

An E coli outbreak that resulted in at least one death has been linked to McDonald’s “Quarter Pounder” hamburgers, US public health authorities said on Tuesday.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that there have been 49 cases in this sandwich-related outbreak which spans 10 states. Ten people have been hospitalized in this onset of cases.

“This is a fast-moving outbreak investigation. Most sick people are reporting eating Quarter Pounder hamburgers from McDonald’s and investigators are working quickly to confirm which food ingredient is contaminated,” the CDC said.

The agency noted that “McDonald’s has pulled ingredients for these burgers” and they won’t be available for purchase in some states. Most of the people who have fallen ill are in Colorado and Nebraska, officials said.

The agency said that McDonald’s is working with investigators to figure out which ingredient is making people fall ill. The company has stopped using “fresh slivered onions” and 1/4 lb beef patties in some states while the probe is ongoing.

The symptoms of E coli include extreme stomach cramps and diarrhea, as well as vomiting. The onset of symptoms is typically three or four days after ingesting the bacteria.

The majority of people recover without treatment within five to seven days. However, some people can develop severe kidney problems and require hospitalization, the CDC said.

McDonald’s chief supply chain officer, Cesar Piña, said in an internal message now posted to its website that safety is “our top priority and something we’ll never compromise on” and that as such, “it is why we are taking swift and decisive action following an E coli outbreak in certain states”.

Piña said that preliminary findings indicate that a “subset of illnesses” might be associated with the slithered onions, made by one supplier that provides the allium to three distribution centers. All the local restaurants have been told to take the item off their menu and the company has temporarily stopped the distribution of slivered onions around the affected region.

The company is temporarily taking off the Quarter Pounder from restaurants in areas such as Colorado, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming, and parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Piña also said McDonald’s is working closely with suppliers to ramp up supplies for the Quarter Pounder but “in the meantime, all other menu items, including other beef products (including the Cheeseburger, Hamburger, Big Mac, McDouble and the Double Cheeseburger) are unaffected and available”.

The news comes on the heels of former president Donald Trump appearing at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s in a staged campaign stop. Trump served french fries and spent a few minutes behind the frier in an attempt to mock Kamala Harris, who worked at McDonald’s during college; he has claimed, without evidence, that she did not work at the fast food restaurant.

This burger outbreak is among a host of recent incidents involving infected food. Some 12m lbs of meat was recalled earlier this month for possible listeria contamination.

Late this summer, dozens were sickened, and several died, from a listeria food poisoning outbreak tied to Boar’s Head deli meats.

Water companies in England could be banned from making a profit under plans for a complete overhaul of the system.

The idea is one of the options being considered by a new commission set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) amid public fury over the way firms have prioritised profit over the environment.

Sources at the department said they would consider forcing the sale of water companies in England to firms that would run them as not-for-profits. Unlike under nationalisation, the company would not be run by the government but by a private company, run for public benefit.

The nonprofit model, which is widely used in other European countries, allows staff to be paid substantial salaries and bonuses but any profits on top of that are returned to the company.

Welsh Water, which runs under this model, has no shareholders and any surplus money is reinvested back into the business or into customer services.

Since Welsh Water was bought in 2001 it has reduced its debt substantially; its ratio of debt to equity has dropped from 93% to 58% since not-for-profit Glas Cymru acquired the company with debts of £1.85bn.

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said: “Our waterways are polluted and our water system urgently needs fixing. That is why today we have launched a water commission to attract the investment we need to clean up our waterways and rebuild our broken water infrastructure. The commission’s findings will help shape new legislation to reform the water sector so it properly serves the interests of customers and the environment.”

The news comes as Ofwat considers how much it will allow companies to raise bills by, with water firms having asked the regulator to let them increase charges by up to 84% over the next five years. All options were on the table to reform the regulators, including abolishing Ofwat, Defra officials said on Tuesday.

Public anger has grown in recent years over the large sums of money made by water bosses in England while water supplies have dwindled and sewage has been spilled into rivers.

There has also been anger at the mismanagement of companies such as Thames Water, which have been loaded with debt and paid shareholders billions in dividends. Since privatisation in 1989, the English and Welsh water companies have collectively paid £78bn in dividends and accumulated £60bn in debt.

Reed said he was not considering nationalisation as part of the review, which would cost “tens of billions of pounds”.

But the commission, chaired by the former deputy governor of the Bank of England Jon Cunliffe, will consider all other options to ensure infrastructure is built and sewage stops spilling into waterways.

Cunliffe’s independent commission will draw upon a panel of experts from across the regulatory, environment, health, engineering, customer, investor and economic sectors. Water company representatives will not be on the panel but will be consulted for their views.

Environmental groups have expressed concern after Defra said the key aim of the commission was to reform the regulators so they encouraged investment and growth. They have said the environment should be prioritised over economic growth, but Defra sources said that without investment, the reservoirs and sewers needed to tackle the climate and nature emergencies could not be built.

James Wallace, the CEO of campaign group River Action, said: “We must not see the environment sacrificed on the altar of economic growth. The water commission must stop vampiric business interests and international investors sucking the lifeblood and money from our waterways and communities. It must deliver a fully funded national action plan to end pollution for profit, enforce laws, and reform regulators.

“Taking a look at our neighbours in Europe shows a range of approaches from wholly nationalised to not-for-profit organisations including a blend of private, public and mutualised models. The key is effective economic and environmental regulation that incentivises operating for public benefit and makes polluters pay.”

Doug Parr, policy director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Too much emphasis on making the sector attractive to big international investors like Macquarie is the exact reason why our waterways are in such an appalling state today. With a natural monopoly on an essential resource like water, we need a regulatory system that forces the industry to provide an acceptable minimum level of service, including an end to the routine discharges of raw sewage.

“If big international investors are unable to make sufficient profit in that environment, then clearly this is not a problem that can be solved by big international investors, and the government will have to do what every other country in the world has done and look at other ownership options.”

Decisions made by the independent commission will not come into force until the 2029 price review. For this year’s price review, which sets water bill levels over the next five years, water companies on Tuesday made requests to increase bills by more than they had at the beginning of the process.

Thames Water is now asking to raise bills by 53% to an average of £667 a year by 2029/30, making them the most expensive water bills in the country. Southern Water is seeking the biggest hike at 84%.

Ofwat will make its final decision for how much water bills can rise on 19 December, but its interim decision made in July said the average bill could rise 21% a year. Government sources confirmed on Tuesday that this number could rise.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “Clearly no one wanted to see a situation where water bills are rising, where the water sector has got into the situation that it has, with record levels of sewage spills and ageing infrastructure. From the government’s perspective, our priority is making sure that money goes where it’s needed and ensuring that water companies are putting customers first. If money isn’t spent, it will be returned to customers.”

More hen harriers were killed in 2023 than in any other year on record, a report has found.

The RSPB’s Birdcrime report also found that at least 1,344 individual birds of prey were persecuted in the UK between 2009 and 2023, and that 75% of people convicted of offences related to the persecution of birds of prey in that period were connected to the gamebird shooting industry.

Shooting estates have historically killed birds of prey because of fears the raptors will eat game birds such as grouse, meaning there are fewer for people to shoot. Birds traditionally targeted include rare and threatened species such as golden eagles, hen harriers, peregrine falcons, white-tailed eagles and goshawks.

The RSPB is calling for laws to be tightened; though birds of prey are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, only one person has been jailed in the past 15 years.

Mark Thomas, the RSPB’s UK head of investigations, said: “If we are to save birds like the highly threatened hen harrier, then the current legislation is clearly not enough: we need licensing of gamebird shooting throughout the UK, stronger penalties and meaningful sentencing to stop these crimes and save our wildlife.”

In Scotland, a law passed in March this year requires all grouse shoots in Scotland to have a licence to operate, and if crimes such as the killing of birds of prey take place on the estate, the licence can be revoked. The RSPB is recommending a similar law be passed by the Labour government in England. It also says shoots of all gamebirds, not just grouse, should require a licence to operate across the devolved nations, and has called on national governments to enforce tougher penalties for the deliberate killing of birds.

A Defra spokesperson said there are no plans to introduce licences for gamebird shooting in England, adding: “Bird of prey crime is a national wildlife crime priority and there are strong penalties in place for offences committed against birds of prey and other wildlife.”

Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, the actor Julianne Moore and the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke are among 10,500 signatories of a statement from the creative industries warning artificial intelligence companies that unlicensed use of their work is a “major, unjust threat” to artists’ livelihoods.

The statement comes amid legal battles between creative professionals and tech firms over the use of their work to train AI models such as ChatGPT and claims that using their intellectual property without permission is a breach of copyright.

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted,” reads the statement.

Thousands of creative professionals from the worlds of literature, music, film, theatre and television have given their backing to the statement, with authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, Ann Patchett, and Kate Mosse, musicians including the Cure’s Robert Smith as well as the composer Max Richter and actors including Kevin Bacon, Rosario Dawson and F Murray Abraham.

The organiser of the letter, the British composer and former AI executive Ed Newton-Rex, said people who make a living from creative work are “very worried” about the situation.

“There are three key resources that generative AI companies need to build AI models: people, compute, and data. They spend vast sums on the first two – sometimes a million dollars per engineer, and up to a billion dollars per model. But they expect to take the third – training data – for free,” he said.

Newton-Rex is a former head of audio at tech firm Stability AI but resigned last year over the firm’s belief that taking copyrighted content to train AI models without a licence constitutes “fair use”, a term under US copyright law meaning permission from the copyright owner is not needed.

Newton-Rex added: “When AI companies call this ‘training data’, they dehumanise it. What we’re talking about is people’s work – their writing, their art, their music.”

In the US John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and George RR Martin are among a group of authors suing ChatGPT developer OpenAI for alleged breach of copyright, while artists are also suing tech firms behind image generators and major record labels including Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group are suing AI music creators Suno and Udio.

Newton-Rex also warned that an “opt-out” proposal for scraping content being considered by the UK government would be highly damaging. This month the Financial Times reported that ministers would consult on a scheme that would allow AI firms to scrape content from artists and publishers unless they “opt out” of the process.

Last month Google, a major player in AI, called for the relaxation of restrictions on a practice in the UK known as text and data mining (TDM), where copying of copyrighted work is allowed for non-commercial purposes such as academic research.

Newton-Rex said the opt-out option was flawed because most people are unaware of such schemes.

“I have run opt-out schemes for AI companies,” said Newton-Rex. “Even the most well-run opt-out schemes get missed by most people who have the chance to opt out. You never hear about it, you miss the email.

“It’s totally unfair to put the burden of opting out of AI training on the creator whose work is being trained on. If a government really thought this was a good thing for creators then it would create an opt-in scheme.”

Newton-Rex said the number of signatories to the statement, and the breadth of creative talent they represent, made clear that an opt-out scheme would be considered “totally unfair” by creators.

The statement is also signed by creative industry organisations and companies including the American Federation of Musicians, the US actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, the European Writers’ Council and Universal Music Group.

Hurricane Helene took much from western North Carolina where I live, farm and raise my family. The stories are harrowing: houses obliterated by landslides, whole families washed away, corpses revealed as the waters receded.

Suddenly, there’s deep climate trauma here, in a place where we mistakenly thought hurricanes happened to Floridians and coastal communities, not us. Helene stole our sense of security: we now side-eye trees, which crushed homes, power lines, cars and people. And the rain, the farmer’s frequent wish, turned our rivers maniacal.

It’s not just a question of what Helene, now the nation’s deadliest hurricane since Katrina, took. It’s also a question of what it left behind: tons of soil, sediment and toxic sludge in places where it shouldn’t be – including covering our region’s farms.

In Marion, North Carolina, Chue and Tou Lee of Lee’s One Fortune Farm are Hmong farmers who grow rice (a rarity in the mountains), a wide assortment of Asian vegetables, and reportedly the best peaches in the region. When nearby Canoe Creek flooded, it drowned $60,000 of produce, a significant amount for any small farm to lose. Their lower field is now buried under almost 4ft (1.2 meters) of sand and sediment, which they’ll need a machine to move before replanting.

Sixty miles (97km) away in Hendersonville, Delia Jovel Dubón heads Tierra Fértil Coop, a Hispanic worker-owned farming co-operative. This season was to be its last sharing land with Tiny Bridge Farm, where the French Broad River crested 10ft higher than its Hurricane Frances peak in 2004. Twenty feet of water swallowed their fields, destroying all crops and washing away two greenhouses.

Ed Graves, one of Tiny Bridge’s owners, wrote on social media about the added work of looking for resources to help post-storm: “Our food system is such that people who feed their communities have to fundraise after disasters. We keep receipts and apply for all the things.” But, showing the optimism required of farmers, Graves said: “We still have topsoil so we have hope.”

Any farmer who understands sustainable, regenerative or organic agriculture practices will tell you that soil is life. It teems with microbes, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, other insects and animals. All that soil life has a deep relationship with the plants via their roots. The plants trade carbs and sugars for essential nutrients and water from the soil’s underground microbiology. This complex, invisible collaboration breaks down when soil is submerged, and life begins to die.

This die-off can lead to an effect known as post-flood syndrome, which describes the stunted growth of crops after soils have been water-logged. Flooding can be especially damaging to beneficial fungi, and that affects how plants can access phosphorus. The mineral is essential to plant growth, and its depletion can linger for seasons.

Patience, persistence and plant-based solutions

Barnardsville farmer Michael Rayburn is also the urban agriculture extension agent for Buncombe county, which experienced the most Helene-related fatalities of any North Carolina county. He lost his ginger crop, which he used for specialty products such as chips and infused sugar. Even so, he felt lucky, with no harm to his family or home and just a few inches of floodwater covering the ginger.

Still, it only takes a few inches to contaminate a crop. “We’re out in the country,” he said. “Every house upstream has a septic system and septic field that will have mixed fecal matter into the floodwaters.”

Microbes that can sicken humans and livestock seep into the soil and the crops themselves. The North Carolina State University Food Safety Repository lists E coli, listeria, Vibrio, salmonella, hepatitis A and norovirus as increased risks when eating produce from flooded gardens.

And this was no normal weather event (one water resource engineer went viral for saying that Helene was a “30,000-year storm”).

“Old houses turned to confetti, diesel tractors washed away like bath toys,” said Rayburn. “I stood on my porch and watched propane canisters and 300-gallon oil drums float by.” Effluent from wastewater plants, pesticides, herbicides, fuel and industrial chemicals all ended up in the water.

Thirty miles downstream in neighboring Madison county, the French Broad River inundated the downtown of Marshall (population about 800) with mud and debris. But the term “mud” is misleading. “Mud” is the rainy-day puddle we played in as kids. This is toxic sludge, plastered across roads and sidewalks, filling buildings and alleyways. The community called for personal protective gear – gloves, goggles, boots, respirators – simply so they could clean their town.

It’s a colossal task, cleaning a mud-flattened, toxic town center. How do farmers “clean” our fields? How does chemical-soaked soil grow anything again, let alone food?

“Everywhere is going to be different,” said Rayburn. “But remember, flooding is a natural process, so it’s not the end of the road.” Soil and water testing is going to be an important tool to establish what specific contaminants farmers will need to deal with (and how to protect themselves).

Plants themselves hold many of the solutions.

The current recommendation from Buncombe county extension, where Rayburn works, is to plant nothing but cover crops for at least 60 days after the flood event. “Let the shit sit,” said Rayburn.

Simple exposure to sunlight and the weather can be enough to break down or dilute many dangerous pathogens. The same is true of some chemicals like pesticides and herbicides. Cover crops include a wide range of grasses, legumes and brassica (a family of plants that includes radishes, mustard and many others). Their roots encourage the return of life within the soil, much like taking a probiotic after a course of antibiotics.

Other toxins like heavy metals will not break down over time. For these, soil testing and targeted remediation efforts will be critical. Again, plants can help. Phytoremediation is the process of planting crops like sunflower and mustard, which can pull arsenic, lead and cadmium from the soil and into their leaves. When the plants are removed, so are the toxins. Similarly, mycoremediation uses mushrooms to break down complex carbons like oil and diesel. This natural technology has been applied at various scales from contaminated soils in community gardens to large oil spills in the Amazon.

Soil remediation is one thing, but the physical cleanup is a daunting task with no easy or natural solutions. Helene mixed everything up like a blender. Soil and sludge cover towns, and broken towns are also strewn across farmlands.

Mark Dempsey, a doctoral candidate in lentil breeding and genetics at Clemson University, has a home and small urban farm in Swannanoa, North Carolina. His housemates were forced to swim from his house as floodwaters rapidly rose. Dempsey regularly teaches soil classes at farming conferences, and he’s a big proponent of cover cropping.

“I was actually getting ready to sow my fall cover crop,” Dempsey said, “but decided to wait until after Helene just in case the field flooded a little.” Never did he imagine that Swannanoa would be so devastated. The landscape is marked with piles of rubble, sand and trash, like the moraines of rock and sediment left in the wake of a glacier.

Dempsey quickly realized there was simply so much debris that a cover crop would just make cleanup harder. “There’s a new wrecked car in my garden,” he said. “And so much stuff. Just human junk everywhere. It’s going to take months.”

Dubón and her colleagues at Tierra Fértil Coop are in a similar position, and have already had one community cleanup day at Tiny Bridge Farm. “We have dealt with this in our own countries [of origin], and our priority is to recover. Always recover,” said Dubón. “If we stop to think of all the problems, we’ll be paralyzed.”

And they can only move so quickly: flood recovery is often a wait-and-see proposition. See how much damage they sustained as they clean up, see what’s in the soil, see what resources they can gather to rebuild.

Rayburn urges patience, as much as he gets the urgent need to do something. “I’m a farmer,” he said. “I understand the emotional connection to the land and the desire to return to how things were.” We even talked of an alluvial silver lining, noting the richest soils in the region are sandy bottomlands, near streams and rivers, which have benefited from layers of mineral rich flood deposits.

The land will heal. But in the meantime, farmers have no crops and therefore no income. Many are faced with a long and arduous recovery, relying on grants, loans and mutual aid to figure out the future.

The Lees want to replant as soon as possible to recoup their losses, Rayburn will follow his own advice of patience, cover crops and soil testing. As a hobby farmer, Dempsey lost his home but not his livelihood. Dubón and crew are committed to cleanup, but have other growing sites less affected.

Less than a month after the storm, many farmers are still just surviving day to day. Sass Ayres, farm manager of Mystic Roots Farm in Fairview, North Carolina, wrote online that it’s hard to tell that their farm ever existed.

“I don’t know what’s next. Though as a farmer, I do know that everything starts with a seed. It’s the magic on which we bet our hearts & livelihoods. Once the wreckage is cleared, I have faith that there’s a seed just waiting to burst open with life. Know that we hold this hope for all of us really tight. It’s what farmers do.”

Chris Smith is executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing non-profit working to celebrate food and farming in western North Carolina.

Ed Miliband is facing his first key test on Labour’s ambitions for global climate leadership, with a crucial decision looming on how far and how fast to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy secretary is preparing a new international pledge for the UK to cut carbon sharply in the next decade, but could face opposition within the cabinet.

Experts and campaigners told the Guardian the UK should make substantial cuts to carbon in the next 10 years, compared with its existing pledge. Lord Stern, the economist, said the new target should be a cut of at least 78% in carbon emissions, compared with 1990 levels, by 2035.

That is a 10 percentage point increase on the existing pledge, under the Paris climate agreement, to cut emissions by 68% by 2030 – a pledge made by Boris Johnson in 2021 but which the UK is well off track in meeting.

Stern said: “A strong transition [to a low-carbon economy] and the investment and innovation which drives it is crucial to our own growth. If we commit and deliver, as we can, we will establish a much more attractive growth story than the dirty destructive models of the past. And we can show the way internationally.”

Mike Hemsley, the deputy director of the Energy Transitions Commission thinktank, agreed that 78% should be the key figure. “This is a reasonable number. We have seen an acceleration [of the move to clean energy] in the power sector, but there has not been much progress on buildings, which is needed,” he said.

Friends of the Earth also agreed that a pledge of 78% cuts would be on target. Mike Childs, head of policy, said: “We’d argue that the urgent need to prevent climate breakdown spiralling out of control requires the deepest cuts possible. This must focus on cleaning up our act at home, because a significant proportion of our cuts to date have come from outsourcing manufacturing abroad rather than reducing emissions across sectors in the UK. But it must be matched with investment in a fair, green transition that protects jobs and communities.”

The question of what the pledge should be must be decided urgently. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, promised at the UN general assembly last month to present the UK’s next emissions-cutting pledge at the forthcoming UN climate summit, Cop29, in Azerbaijan from 11 November.

That is significantly in advance of the February deadline for submitting such plans – known as NDCs (nationally determined contributions) – to the UN, showing the UK’s determination to take a lead on the issue.

Before the autumn budget at the end of this month, the Climate Change Committee – the independent advisers to the government – will present their deliberations on what the headline emissions pledge should be. After that, Miliband and his advisers will have just over a fortnight to prepare at least a draft of the NDC, for presentation to other governments at Cop29.

Miliband does not have to take the CCC’s advice. The Guardian has learned that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is working on its own headline number on emissions cuts, independently of the CCC’s deliberations.

The question of whether to push for tougher targets, or to hold back on the grounds that other countries should do more, is likely to be a key tussle within the Labour cabinet.

Miliband is pushing for greater ambition, and has the support of the foreign secretary, David Lammy, who views the climate crisis as a threat to national security and believes the UK must take a leading role in tackling it.

Starmer has also staked his personal reputation among world leaders on the issue. At the UN last month, he told other heads of state: “We are returning the UK to responsible global leadership … because it is right, but also because it is plainly in our self-interest.”

He put the climate at the heart of that aim. “Under my leadership, the UK will lead again, tackling climate change, at home and internationally and restoring our commitment to international development,” he said. “The threat of climate change is existential and it is happening in the here and now. So we have reset Britain’s approach. “

But the Guardian understands that there are qualms among some at the top of government, who are more cautious on net zero. The Tories, since Rishi Sunak made a U-turn on climate action a year ago, have taken the line that the UK should take a back seat and let other countries forge ahead in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Both of the party’s leadership contenders, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, have taken hostile positions on the race to net zero and would make it a main attack line as leader. Some Labour strategists fear this could be a vulnerability for the party.

Labour’s launch of GB Energy was in part intended to quell such fears, by presenting a future in which green jobs take over from the fossil fuel-dependent economy.

However, pushing for stronger action on the climate is likely to require more investment in the UK’s green infrastructure. Whether that is forthcoming will depend on Rachel Reeves, chancellor of the exchequer, when she presents her first autumn budget on 30 October.

Stern believes the path to the economic growth Reeves seeks must lie through low-carbon innovation. He said: “Investment with strong returns, financed long term at moderate cost, is good for the public finances as well as growth.”

Millions of critically endangered eels have been exported from the Severn estuary to Russia this year and conservationists fear export quotas will be increased next year.

A tonne of glass eels, the young elvers that swim into European estuaries from the Sargasso Sea each spring, was flown to Kaliningrad this year, double the amount exported to the Russian port the previous year.

Eel industry sources have told the Guardian that next year’s application could increase to 5 tonnes. One tonne of European glass eels amounts to about 3 million fish.

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is a protected, red-listed species, with the number of elvers migrating into European rivers having declined by 95% since the 1980s.

In 2010 the EU banned the trade of European eels outside their natural range in Europe. Since Brexit it has been impossible for the UK to export glass eels to EU countries. But a legal loophole makes it permissible to catch and export elvers to non-EU destinations in their natural European range if they are used for conservation purposes, such as restocking lakes or rivers.

Andrew Kerr, of the Sustainable Eel Group, a European-wide body working with scientists, conservationists and commercial fishers, described the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) permitting the export of glass eels to Kaliningrad as “bonkers”.

According to Kerr, eels exported to the Russian port could be smuggled eastwards towards Asia, where there is huge demand for young eels to stock fish farms because no one has worked out how to captive-breed the enigmatic species, which can live for up to 50 years in European rivers and lakes before returning to their Sargasso Sea birthplace to breed.

“Trafficking in eel is the biggest wildlife crime of a living creature on the planet,” Kerr said. “It is such a risk to send them to Kaliningrad, the most notorious corner of Europe where everything is traded – humans, drugs, guns and eels.”

Peter Wood of UK Glass Eels, who has been exporting glass eels for more than 50 years, said a ban on eel exports to Russia would stop the traditional fishery on the River Severn because there were no other markets to export to. Exporting glass eels to Asia is forbidden.

“It would close the fishery. That will be hundreds of years of heritage and culture gone,” Wood said.

Last year, government scientists issued a “non-detriment” finding for eels, judging that until 2026 there was a harvestable surplus of glass eels on the River Severn and the River Parrett, even allowing for catch rates of up to 75% of the population. This enables their legal export.

Wood said he hoped to increase the amount of glass eels he would fly in his company plane to Kaliningrad next year. He said the eels were destined for a Russian ministry of agriculture-led “restocking” conservation project, whereby young eels are placed in the Vistula and Curonian lagoons, which Russia shares with Poland and Lithuania. From here, mature eels can reach the Baltic and, potentially, return to their Sargasso Sea breeding grounds.

“This is a fantastic project. It’s probably going to be the largest stocking project in Europe once it gets going. Everybody is a winner,” he said.

Of allegations that sending eels to Russia risked them being smuggled to Asia, Wood said: “I don’t think there is any evidence for that at all. This is a really forward-looking environmental project. We just do not see this level of care at a lot of these restocking projects in Europe. It’s absolutely transparent. They send Defra a very detailed report of the stocking that’s taken place and the mortalities in the quarantine station.”

He added: “Some of the problem is the moral dilemma of working with Russia. They’re not getting these glass eels for free. Every hundred kilos of glass eels they have, that’ll be one less missile they can afford to send.”

Kerr said it was not good conservation practice to send the eels to the eastern edge of their natural range, where individuals were less likely to make it back to the Sargasso than if they stayed in the Severn.

“We don’t know which silver [mature] eels make it back to the Sargasso Sea but the further they have to travel, the fewer will make it. Emptying a few eels into the east European edge of its range is not really conservation,” he said. “Restocking can be used as an emergency measure but it should be in addition to real conservation measures such as wetland and river restoration.”

The author Charles Foster, who has written about the plight of the eel, said: “The export of critically endangered species to an unknown fate cannot possibly be justified on the basis of tradition or economics or in any other way.”

Between 50 million and 100 million glass eels swim into the Severn each year. Scientists calculate that 40% of mature silver eels need to get back down the river and out to sea to ensure there will be a recovery in the global population. At present there is just 2.3% such escapement.

According to the government, applications to export eels are assessed on a case-by-case basis, and the single application from Wood’s company in 2024 met the requirements of the UK wildlife trade regulations. The eels were found to be legally and sustainably caught and there were no conservation factors judged to merit the application being refused.

A Defra spokesperson said: “We have robust rules and laws in place to safeguard protected species such as glass eels. Any applications to export them are scrutinised thoroughly by UK Cites authorities to ensure they are legal and sustainable. Any reports of illegal wildlife trafficking are taken very seriously and would be investigated by the Animal and Plant Health Agency and Border Force officials.”

It’s like gatecrashing a Bruegel every morning at Fairy Hill at the moment, and even with sunrise at 7.30am there is autumnal activity in the fields, rooks on the treetops, brown hares by the stone wall, the farmer on his quad and my nearest neighbour chopping wood. Sadly, the fine-looking but hapless young Aberdeen Angus bull is showing no inclination to mate with the females for a second season and is likely to be relegated. Small parties of migrant fieldfares and redwings are feasting on the worms, brought to the surface by the trampling of the 200 Holstein milkers, while the resident green woodpecker or “yaffle” laughs his way “doon the brae”.

But at this time of year it is overhead where the real action is, and just now several hundred noisy barnacle geese flew over on their way from Svalbard in the Arctic Circle to the Solway wetlands. When the stragglers arrive, their number will reach 30,000, the majority overwintering along the coast at WWT Caerlaverock.

On my trip to the vast Caerlaverock there were also a small number of dark-bellied brent geese down from Russia, pink-footed geese, and large flocks of lapwings and curlews. Over the high tide were huge numbers of dunlins and knots, forming a speedy but low-level murmuration.

As if things couldn’t get any better, I heard on the grapevine that there were two snow geese at RSPB Mereshead – also near the coast of the Solway Firth – where the mix of tidal and freshwater brine is a beacon for all manner of wildlife, including otters. The pure white geese stood out like, well, snow geese on a salt marsh. Just beautiful.

Back at the croft, my excitement is immediately tempered by the bleak reality that the resident family of roe deer here, which I’ve been watching closely for a year, have been shot. Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow comes to mind. There is of course a need for controlling deer in some areas because of the damage they can cause, and I have venison in my freezer, but these were my Fairy Hill companions, and all the woods are fenced to keep out the Holsteins. They bothered no one.

Country diary is on Twitter/X at @gdncountrydiary