MORE illegal migrants are in Britain than any other European nation, a study has found.
Researchers believe as many as 745,000 are still here — enough to rival the population of Leeds.
The number is equivalent to one in 100 of the entire UK population and more than double the 300,000 in France.
It is also ahead of the highest estimate for Germany, which at 700,000 has the second-largest illegal population.
The landmark research was compiled by 18 institutions, including Oxford University’s Compas migration study centre.
Study chiefs estimated the number of illegal migrants in Britain as between 594,000 and 745,000.
The figure covers those who entered illegally, overstayed on a visa, or “‘disappeared” off-grid.
Experts suggested the size of the UK’s illegal migrant population could reflect the value of the so-called “black economy”.
The research is part of a new public database to estimate illegal migrant populations around the world.
Denis Kierans, senior researcher at Compas, said: “These are people living and working in the UK, but outside the tax and benefits system.
“The state is missing out on their contributions to the public purse while they end up at risk of exploitation and destitution.”
The figure comes on top of the asylum backlog of 224,742.
BIG Brother housemates Martha and Ryan are left facing off against one another in one of the show’s first tasks.
The show’s live launch revealed a show-first twist in which the house was divided into housemates and non-housemates.
Only five of the 16 housemates were given housemate status after a game of chance that saw them forced to choose on the right or blue side.
It meant that the 11 stars who did not make housemate status were forced to go into storage – a dishevelled area of the house with just one mattress on the floor.
However, in a twist, the non-housemates will get a chance to take on a series of challenges in order to win coveted housemate status.
It forced them to pick one of the stars who had made it into the main house to take them on.
First up, Martha opted to volunteer herself in order to get a chance to live in the luxury of the main house.
Big Brother said to them: “Non-housemates, you must challenge and then beat one Housemate in a brutal head-to-head battle.
“If you win, you’ll enter the house as a better Housemate.
“Which one of you is the best game player in order to take on the first head-to-head.”
26-year-old Martha then said: “Can I do it? Can I do it?”
As her co-stars agreed, Martha was then forced to choose which housemate she thought was the “worst game player” in order to go against her.
She chose Ryan and the two housemates were then forced to enter a task room with a huge large paint-splashed cake sat atop a table in the middle.
Entering the battle room, they donned protective ear and eye-wear as the huge cake blew up in their faces.
The cake then exploded before Martha and Ryan’s eyes.
Big Brother said to Martha and Ryan, “Shortly Ali will enter as judge to decide which one of you pressed the button and blew up my cake.”
Although it was Big Brother that blew up the cake, Martha and Ryan had to convince Ali it was their opponent in order to prove they were in fact the best game-player.
A brand new batch of Big Brother housemates are living it up in the famous compound.
Meet the cast of the 2024 series:
HARRY and Meghan are divorcing. You read it here first.
That’s because I read it in a slew of ludicrous US publications — ones where libel laws don’t really exist and false news is, well, just news.
Recent highlights include an In Touch front-page headline, “Kim Kardashian Paid To Get Fat”, and “Jen Aniston’s Baby Joy” (32 times has the never-pregnant star been pregnant, according to American mags).
Or “Kim Kardashian: My Butt Won’t Stop Growing” [maybe she’s paid to get fat], and the National Enquirer: “Beyonce and Jay-Z’s $1billion divorce” [spoiler: they are still wed].
The National Enquirer also printed Whitney Houston’s “Last Ever Photo” — a shot of the poor soul in her coffin. [technically, it was her last ever photo, but, yeah, not cool].
I digress.
But according to dodgy mags across the Pond, and even one in Spain, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are in the middle of a trial separation and/or heading to the divorce courts before you can say “finding freedom”.
Over here, of course, we wouldn’t be so bold — or legally liable — to write anything so silly.
And because I can sense my lawyers now twitching furiously — for the record, Harry and Meghan have NOT announced their separation.
Newspapers and broadcasters can, however, slowly drip-feed the facts.
That the couple, six and a bit years on from their wedding extravaganza, are now spending more time then ever apart.
That while Prince “I want privacy” Harry made a surprise appearance on US TV’s Jimmy Fallon show, running through a haunted maze and saying “f***” a lot, former Suits actress Meghan — someone who is surely more aligned with going on the Jimmy Fallon show — was nowhere to be seen.
That, over the past few months, Harry has been on a series of solo work trips — ones for which his wife would previously have been Pritt Sticked to his side, smiling for the cameras.
We are by now well used to hard-done-by Harry scowling — but, particularly of late, he really, really cannot turn that frown upside down.
Meg has now ventured down the red carpet on her tod, too, making a guest appearance at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Gala.
She looked stunning in a Carolina Herrera red frock — which she wore alongside Harry at a benefit do three years ago.
Members of their team have been studiously briefing, insisting all is fine and that it’s perfectly normal for couples to spend some time apart.
Which, in itself, seems an extraordinary and unnecessary move if all truly is well.
Surely, say nothing.
Friends of friends from the UK claim that earlier this year the pair stayed at their California mansion, in Montecito.
But I am reliably told Meghan was barely seen — prompting speculation she was perhaps not in the marital home.
Of course, she, too, may have been with friends — or hiding away in a wing, desperately not associating with friends of friends of mine.
Who knows what is really going on? Probably only Meghan and Harry.
And, really, why should they brief the rest of us on how strained or otherwise the atmosphere is over the breakfast island?
Whatever the truth, Harry and Meghan don’t always help themselves — with members of staff quitting or being culled at a rate of knots, it is a tableau that doesn’t exactly scream loyalty, contentment and domestic bliss.
Should Harry and Meghan ever truly separate — and let’s hope they never do — the split would be like the fall of Rome. Slow at first then all at once.
To conclude — as my wise mother once said: “I give it seven years.”
GOD loves a trier.
Mattel, the maker of Barbie – that pneumatic, pink-loving, Ken-worshipping beacon of feminism – tried to make a Virginia Woolf lookalike doll.
The ludicrous proposition – “flattened out a bit” and hidden “beneath a long Victorian dress” – was vetoed by family of author and essayist Virginia.
“Over our dead bodies”, was the feedback, according to Woolf’s great-niece.
Which is more feminist than any Barbie doll could ever be.
RYLAN sparked fierce national debate this week by tweeting about how incensed he was after a pedestrian refused to give a wave of thanks at a zebra crossing.
“Fans”, this being X, immediately laid into him, suggesting he was merely miffed at not being recognised – or that it “wasn’t the law”.
He wrote: “I know pedestrians have right of way at zebra crossings . . . BUT SAY THANK YOU OR POP UR HAND UP. Rude pr**ks.”
“I’ve been brought up to say thanks when a car slows down at a zebra crossing.”
Rylan has been brought up right.
Nothing infuriates me more – besides holding a door open for someone for what seems like an eternity and not receiving so much as a grunt of acknowledgment – than people not waving their thanks at a zebra crossing.
It’s rule 101.
THIS little gem has been doing the rounds on social media.
A Manhattan-based woman has screen-shotted the dating app profile of a prospective match.
In it, the bloke says: “Hello everybody.” [So far, so good.]
“Hoping to meet interesting women. I’m an entrepreneur and also work as an executioner in Saudi Arabia. If that scares you then I apologise.” [Cute, thoughtful.]
“It’s more like a hobby (I don’t do it as often as before since I don’t live in Saudi Arabia any more. I like watching movies, going out, listening to music.”
Here’s hoping he hasn’t already been snapped up.
FOR YEARS I have been beating this drum.
And, slowly, slowly catchy monkey, the world and my mates are catching up.
“Sleep divorce” is finally a thing – with couples realising that, yes, they sleep better alone than squished into a European King alongside a snoring, snuffling, 1am and 3am-urinating warthog of a partner.
A new report shows couples – those lucky enough to do so – are moving to bigger homes, building extensions to shunting out kids in order to sleep separately.
One in 20 of us, and one in ten in cramped London, are now remortgaging so we can expand and have our own bedrooms.
Call me unromantic or neurodiverse but no amount of cuddling makes up for a solid eight hours of sheer, unadulterated, blissful kip. Solo.
LAST week, I bemoaned Labour’s largely unfair plans to impose VAT on private schools – effectively punishing hard-working, not super-wealthy parents, and further overwhelming the state system.
Now unions, tax experts and school leaders have voiced concerns that sticking to the tax’s proposed January 1 start date will cause chaos and teacher job losses.
The move will also seriously impact children with special educational needs and disabilities if state schools have to cater for them.
The scheme will drive more than 10,000 pupils out of independent education, and schooling the extra students in the state system will cost the taxpayer £92.8million.
Rishi Sunak said it would take Labour 100 days to sink Britain – four days off, and it seems he wasn’t wrong.
A SURGEON used a Swiss Army knife to open up the chest of patient, after being unable to locate a scalpel.
A scathing report from the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton explained that the patient had gone into cardiac arrest in the operating theatre, meaning that life-saving surgery – with the penknife – was needed.
Colleagues have seemingly thrown the surgeon under the bus, saying that they were “very surprised” he was unable to find a scalpel.
Apparently, the pen-knife was his own – used to slice open lunchtime fruit.
Frankly, hygiene worries aside, plaudits are surely due for such ingenuity.
IN least surprising news of the year, Britain is getting fatter.
NHS figures show we are on average around a stone heavier than 30 years ago.
ONE Direction singer Liam Payne has been accused of doing “disgusting things” by his ex fiancee Maya Henry.
The troubled star, 31, is said to still inundate the model with calls and emails despite them splitting two years ago.
Maya claims Liam also “blows up” the phones of her friends and her mum – often using different numbers and iCloud accounts.
Taking to TikTok, the online star alleged: “Y’all don’t even know what goes on behind closed doors.
“Ever since we broke up he messages me, he will blow up my phone.
” Not only from his phone number. It’s always from different phone numbers too so I don’t know where it will come from.
“He will create new iCloud accounts to message me, it’s always a damn new iCloud account.
“When I see one pop up on my phone I’m like ‘here we go again.’”
In a clip viewed over two million times on TikTok, Maya continues: “Also he will email me.
“Not only me but he will blow up my mum’s phone.
“He’s also messaging my friends. He is the one that is constantly doing weird s***.”
Liam and Maya, who is the daughter of Texan millionaire business tycoon Thomas J Henry, were first linked in 2018 before getting engaged in summer 2020.
Theys split in June 2021 only to rekindle their romance just two months later.
Liam and Maya split for good in 2022.
Liam, who has a son with singer Cheryl, is currently living in a gated community in Miami, Florida after splashing out on a mansion which boasts a private pool.
A source said: “Liam’s behaviour has been concerning many in his inner circle for months.
“For a while things seemed to be looking up for him but over the past year there are fears he is spiralling.
“He’s no longer around some of his old friends as he’s relocated to America to start a new life out there which means many of those who are around him are ‘yes men’.
“Everyone wants the best for him but things are erratic to say the least.”
Texan born Maya says she has been afraid to speak out against Liam for fear of his army of fans.
Maya said: “It’s hard when you have people jump down your throat for speaking the truth on, quite frankly, very disgusting things that have happened and disgusting things that he’s done… and he knows that too.
“He knows that he can get away with anything. He’s told me. He’s told me the fans will always have their back and they are always going to defend us.
“And he’s right.. that’s the thing. He’s not even wrong.”
Last night reps for Liam declined to comment.
