“Father Christmas is more likely to arrive by delivery van than sleigh and reindeer these days,” said The Times. But with the shift to online shopping comes a “not-so-Christmassy treat”: “falling prey” to “porch pirates” swiping parcels from doorsteps.

How big is the problem?
Parcels worth a total of £666.5 million were stolen across the UK last year, a 77% increase from 2024, according to data obtained from UK police forces by tech company Quadient. Nearly five million households lost at least one parcel – and many more thefts may not have been reported to the police.

What are your legal rights?
Under UK law, it is the responsibility of the seller to ensure the safe delivery of an item, and therefore to provide a replacement or refund if a parcel is lost or stolen before the customer takes physical possession of it. However, “things get a little more complex” if you have selected a “safe place” for the delivery to be left, said The Independent. By nominating a neighbour to take charge of a package, or permitting the courier to hide items behind bins or a garden wall, you are “essentially accepting the risk of any potential loss”. Of course, this doesn’t apply if the parcel was left somewhere other than your safe place.

What to do if your parcel is stolen?
Your first move should be to contact the seller to arrange a replacement or refund, citing Section 29 of the Consumer Rights Act. If you made the purchase with a debit card, you can ask for a “chargeback” from your bank. This means that the bank “steps into your shoes” and raises a dispute with the seller on your behalf, said The Times. Purchases made with a credit card have more extensive protections: for any purchase over £100 and under £30,000, the credit card company is “jointly liable with the retailer and will refund you the full amount if your items do not arrive”.

Around 1,000 people attended Tommy Robinson’s carol concert to “put the Christ back into Christmas” on Saturday. But the Church of England is unimpressed, with several bishops expressing concern about the Unite the Kingdom event.

There’s “something especially offensive about appropriating this great Christian festival of light triumphing over darkness as a prop in a dim culture war”, said the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, in The Independent.

‘No one beyond redemption’
Robinson “has been many things over the years” and now the former “football hooligan is “a born-again Christian”, said Luke O’Reilly in The New Statesman. With British Christianity “stirring” again, “like a human bellwether, Robinson is blowing with the wind”. Yet Christians do “believe that anyone – no matter how badly behaved – can be saved”. The Bible “is full of unsavoury characters”, such as Paul, a merciless persecutor of Christians before he became one. He, “like Robinson, started preaching immediately” after his conversion.

It’s a “key tenet of the Christian faith that no one is beyond redemption”, said vicar and comedian Ravi Holy in The Guardian. But Jesus also said that “true repentance should bear fruit”, and “the new Tommy doesn’t seem radically different from the old one”.

Spreading fear
This “resistance” by “leading lights in the Anglican Church” shows “immense courage”, said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper. Robinson’s “motley patriots” were “once rightly marginalised”, but now seem to “dominate our country”. The Church is “breaking that sordid consensus”, and the willingness of “the heart of the Establishment” to take a stand “could be a turning point”.

The “whole point of coming to church” is to “sit alongside people you may not like, who hold very different, even (to you) repulsive, political views”, said vicar Giles Fraser on UnHerd. At Christmas, churches “resound with angels singing, ‘Fear not’”. By contrast, Robinson “spreads fear”. He is welcome at our services, but he would “have to sit alongside people of different colours and languages, and immigrants”.

Mourners take part in a candlelit vigil at Lippitt Memorial Park in Providence, Rhode Island, following Saturday’s shooting at nearby Brown University. Police continue to hunt for the gunman, who killed two people and injured nine others.

Ben Pennington / The Boston Globe / Getty Images

“After decades as the undisputed centrepiece of the British Christmas table, turkey may finally be losing its crown,” said The Times. In 2020, 60% of people celebrating Christmas chose turkey, but last year, only 51% did, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. If the trend continues, “this year will be the first time since the 1950s that less than half of families eat turkey at Christmas”.

If you are in the mood to try something new, here are a few turkey alternatives that are perfect for your Christmas table.

Baked ham
Although baked ham is more often associated with Boxing Day than Christmas, “for many it’s preferable to turkey”, said The Telegraph. “Traditional trimmings don’t sit so well” with ham, so pair with baked potatoes, creamy mash, mac and cheese, or shredded greens, alongside a high-acidity wine such as a riesling.

Mushroom wellington
Riverford chef Bob Andrew recommends swapping “heavy and gruelling” nut roasts for a wellington packed with “plenty of dark lentils and deeply savoury mushrooms”, said Country & Town House. Serve either as “part of a veggie feast” or with “traditional sides” like stuffing and pigs in blankets, along with plenty of gravy.

Pipers Farm duck
Aside from the convenience of having the largest part of your Christmas dinner arrive at your door, this “impressive duck centrepiece” from online butcher Pipers Farm is “soft and tender, with melt-in-the-mouth fat”, said Good Housekeeping. Serve with roast potatoes, sprouts and a glass of pinot noir.

Welcome to the twilight zone where Nigel Farage can be accused of racism yet still lead the polls
Nesrine Malik in The Guardian
We’re in the “fourth week of revelations” about Nigel Farage’s “alleged racist behaviour at school”, writes Nesrine Malik, and “up scrambles” the Reform leader once again, “a few pieces and more than a few polling points knocked off him, but still in place”. Allegations like this should call into question his “entire role in public life, let alone as possible next prime minister”, but “the opposite” has happened. “The rightwing media” seem “excited that he has come out swinging”.

Women in mid-life come to my surgery worrying they’re going mad – and I know why
Dr Punam Krishan in The i Paper
Every January, middle-aged women come into my GP surgery “feeling exhausted, flat, foggy”, writes Dr Punam Krishan. “Their internal circuitry has shorted.” Oestrogen levels “dip and fluctuate in mid-life”, making us “far more sensitive” to the things Christmas “throws at us: noise, emotional intensity”, changes in routine, “alcohol, sugar” and the “pressure to ‘hold everything together’”. What may feel “like ‘not coping’” is the “brain asking to be treated with the respect and care it now requires”.

Only the Tories can be honest about our plight
Matthew Parris in The Times
We are in an economic “hole”, writes Matthew Parris. And we are “cursed with seven political parties incapable of” acknowledging it. So it must be the eighth party, the Conservatives, who do. Kemi Badenoch should “take the role of the prophetess Cassandra” and tell the truth. She won’t “be thanked” for such “grim tidings”, but “the day will come when we hear, ‘Say what you like about Badenoch, but she was the first to tell it straight’”.