The “horrific” abuse of disabled drivers over blue badge use must stop, say campaigners appalled by threats, insults and physical attacks.
More than one in five motorists with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has been challenged or abused while using a blue badge, a new MS Society survey has found.
Some have been harassed and spat at despite displaying their permit, which lets people park in accessible bays.
Shorts – Quick stories
‘Wise’ bull named after Attenborough to mark 100th birthday
BBC nature broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has had a “wise” bull named after him by animal charity Peta to celebrate his 100th birthday.
Caption: Frozen Planet S2,11-09-2022,Generics,Sir David Attenborough filming for Frozen Planet II,BBC Studios,Alex Board
TV Still
BBC Photographer: Alex Board Provider: BBC Studios/Alex Board
What you need to know
The bull, named Sir Attenbullock to celebrate his birthday on 8 May, will be mentioned in a letter sent to Attenborough by Peta founder Ingrid Newkirk, which will tell him the animal was among the first rescued through Peta India’s Delhi mechanisation project.
Caption: David Attenbullock spent years hauling heavy carts through the chaotic, crowded markets of Delhi, streets familiar to Sir David, weaving through dense traffic and enduring long hours in the heat and dust, often without rest or water. He endured exhaustion, injury, and strain, but today, like Sir David, he has an important educational role, accompanying sanctuary visitors through a birdsong-filled orchard in northern India, allowing people to appreciate nature and get to know the lives and habits of the rescued animals there.
https://www.peta.org.uk/news/bull-sir-david-attenborough/ Copyright: PETA India
Caption: LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 12: Sir David Attenborough attends the Global Launch of BBC Studios’ “Planet Earth III” at Frameless on October 12, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images) Photographer: Dave Benett Provider: Dave Benett/Getty Images Source: Dave Benett Collection Copyright: 2023 Dave Benett
The initiative aims to replace animal-drawn carts with electric vehicles so the overworked animals can retire.
A closer look at the detail
In her letter, Newkirk writes that Sir Attenbullock is “strong, yet gentle”, which she says he shares with Attenborough, and adds that he also “quietly inspires others to appreciate the richness of the natural world”.
Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough (Photo: Humble Bee Sounds/Sky UK)
TELEVISION
3 min read
UK POLITICS
Everything to know about the May local elections
Caption: EMBARGOED TO 0001 MONDAY APRIL 20
File photo dated 06/05/10 of a voter placing a ballot paper in a ballot box at a polling station. Unionist parties could hold the majority in Holyrood after May 7, a poll has suggested, but more than half of constituencies are considered marginal. The survey, carried out for More in Common and seen exclusively by the Press Association, found the SNP will continue to be the largest party, but John Swinney’s party and the Greens – the other independence-supporting party – would fall one seat short of a majority. Issue date: Monday April 20, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Rui Vieira/PA Wire Photographer: Rui Vieira Provider: Rui Vieira/PA Wire Source: PA
Your guide to the local elections next week, including where they are happening, timings and what could happen at the ballots.
What you need to know
Elections are being held across Scotland, Wales and many parts of England on 7 May.
Voters in Scotland will elect MSPs to the 129-seat parliament at Holyrood.
In Wales, voters will choose members of the Senedd (Welsh parliament), which has been expanded from 60 seats to 96 for the first time.
Meanwhile, in England 136 local authorities will hold elections on the same date. This includes all 32 London boroughs, 48 district councils and 18 unitary authorities.
There are also local mayoral elections happening in: Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Watford.
How will the results unfold?
Polling stations open at 7am on Thursday 7 May. Voters in England will need to show a photo ID to be able to cast a vote.
Thousands of people will take to the polls before they close at 10pm.
In England, 46 of the local authorities will count and declare overnight, with results expected between 1am and 6am on 8 May.
Ballot papers in Scotland and Wales will be counted during the day on 8 May, with the first results expected in the afternoon and the final declarations in the evening.
The majority of the remaining English authorities will not begin counting until 9am on 8 May and are likely to start declaring results late in the morning and continue through to the evening.
Labour on course for disaster
Caption: NEWMARKET, ENGLAND – APRIL 29: A man holds a placard as Reform UK Treasury Spokesperson, Robert Jenrick, campaigns for Reform UK in Norfolk on April 29, 2026 in Newmarket, England. For the local elections on 7 May 2026, Reform UK is projected to make historic gains in Norfolk, with some polls predicting they could take overall control of Norfolk County Council. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) Photographer: Leon Neal Provider: Getty Images Source: Getty Images Europe Copyright: 2026 Getty Images
One poll by Lord Robert Hayward predicted Labour will suffer devastating losses of more than 75 per cent of the council seats the party is defending across England.
Reform UK is expected to be the main beneficiary, projected to gain roughly 1,550 seats from both Labour and the Conservatives.
Big Read
4 min read
TECHNOLOGY
Training chatbots to sound friendlier ‘may cause more mistakes’
Caption: Businesswoman using technology smart chatbot AI Photographer: Krongkaew Provider: Getty Images Source: Moment RF
Training AI chatbots such as ChatGPT to sound friendlier may lead them to make more mistakes, a study suggests.
Platforms that prioritised warmth were also more likely to tell people what they wanted to hear, especially if users expressed sadness.
What you need to know
For the study, experts at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford generated and analysed more than 400,000 responses from five platforms; Llama-8b, Mistral-Small, Qwen-32b, Llama-70b and GPT-4o.
Caption: Smartphone with a glass speech bubble with the chatbot symbol inside.Chatbot concept. open AI, Artificial Intelligence. Photographer: Francesco Carta fotografo Provider: Getty Images Source: Moment RF Copyright: Francesco Carta Caption: Illustration Photographer: Malorny Provider: Getty Images Source: Moment RF
Researchers used a training process similar to what developers may use to make their chatbots sound friendlier, and compared how the original and modified platforms responded.
A closer look at the detail
The study found that chatbots trained to sound warmer made between 10 per cent and 30 per cent more mistakes on topics such as medical advice and correcting conspiracy theories. They were also 40 per cent more likely to agree with a user’s false beliefs, particularly if the user expressed sadness or vulnerability.
Exclusive
5 min read
LIFESTYLE
4 min read
‘Warmth may come at cost of accuracy’
Researchers said the findings, published in Nature, suggest that training AI platforms to be warm “may come at a cost to accuracy, and that warmth and accuracy may not be independent by default”.
“As these systems are deployed at an unprecedented scale and take on intimate roles in people’s lives, this trade-off warrants attention from developers, policymakers and users alike,” they added.
SCIENCE
6 min read
Caption: Pigeons fly around a woman who is feeding birds at St George’s Park, Bristol, in cold, but sunny Spring weather. PA Photo. Picture date: Tuesday April 14, 2020. See PA story WEATHER Spring. Photo credit should read: Ben Birchall/PA Wire Photographer: Ben Birchall Provider: PA Source: PA
SCIENCE
Urban birds fear women more than men
Birds in urban areas are more scared of women than they are of men, scientists have discovered.
The findings have defied the expectations of researchers, who hypothesised that birds would perceive men as more threatening than women.
What methods did researchers use?
Caption: A pigeon drinks at a public fountain during a heatwave, in Mulhouse, eastern France, on August 22, 2023. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP) (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images) Photographer: SEBASTIEN BOZON Provider: AFP via Getty Images Source: AFP
Men and women were paired monitored as they walked towards pigeons, starlings and other birds in green spaces.
Participants were matched according to their height and clothing, and hair was hidden if longer than a partner’s.
Caption: Close up of wild city pigeons in sunny day on asphalt. Photographer: Olena Ruban Provider: Getty Images Source: Moment RF
Researchers tested whether birds perceived female versus male observers differently in five European countries.
What did the study show?
The birds allowed men to get a metre closer than women in the study, only taking flight when male participants were 7.5 metres away. Birds were less tolerant of women across the five countries in the study: Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Spain and France. And this behaviour was observed in all 37 bird species in the research.
LIFESTYLE
4 min read
HOMES AND GARDENS
2 min read
What did scientists conclude?
Researchers have described the findings as unexpected. Based on the results, one possible explanation is that in hunter-gatherer societies “women, if they hunted, could have focused more on smaller prey, while males hunted mainly larger prey”.
Caption: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – APRIL 18: A woman feeds birds under a tree at a park during warm weather in London, United Kingdom on April 18, 2026. (Photo by Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images) Photographer: Anadolu Provider: Anadolu via Getty Images Source: Anadolu Caption: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – APRIL 02: A view of ducklings at St. James Park in London, United Kingdom on April 02, 2026. (Photo by Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images) Photographer: Anadolu Provider: Anadolu via Getty Images Source: Anadolu
But they said further research is needed to understand the phenomenon.
HEALTH
Cancer rates in under-50s are rising – and no-one can be sure why
Bowel cancer has the steepest rise in early-onset cases (Photo: Sebastian Kaulitzki/Getty)
Clare Wilson
Science Writer
One of the most concerning trends in cancer is that rates of the disease in people under 50 are on the rise. And we don’t know why.
Now, a group of respected British researchers say that part of the explanation is that people are getting fatter. But other experts are sceptical.
What you need to know
Trend in early-onset cancer spans decades
50%
The rise is biggest in bowel cancer, with about a 50 per cent increase in under-50s since the 1990s in the UK. There are also smaller rises in this age group in tumours affecting over 20 other parts of the body.
9 in 10
It is especially puzzling because rates in the over-50s worldwide have been flat or even slightly declining for many tumour types, studies suggest.
Cancer is a disease that usually affects older people, with nine in 10 tumours arising in people over 50.
What did the study find?
The study looked at lifestyle factors known to raise cancer risk to see if any of these could be responsible for the 22 tumour sites where early-onset cancers are rising.
Eleven of these cancers have known behavioural risk factors. These are: obesity, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, red and processed meat intake and lack of fibre in the diet.
Only one of these – obesity – has been increasing over the past few decades and could potentially explain the rise researchers said, whose study was published in the journal BMJ Oncology.
That’s what led the researchers to claim that excess weight is “the strongest clue to the rise in cancers in under-50s”.
But this study did not prove that the rise in obesity is causing the rise in early-onset cancers – only that the two trends have been happening at the same time.
The bigger picture
When researchers looked at how much the rise in early-onset cancer could be blamed on rising obesity, they found it varied on the tumour type, but obesity never accounted for more than 25 per cent of the extra cases.
Caption: EMBARGOED TO 2330 WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7
Picture posed by a model. File photo dated 03/03/14 of someone using a set of weighing scales. People on fat loss jabs need ongoing support, researchers have said, after a major study found they put all the weight back on much faster than traditional dieters. Researchers from the University of Oxford discovered that people on drugs including semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro) lose weight during treatment but, on average, regain it within 20 months of stopping the jabs. Issue date: Wednesday January 7, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Chris Radburn/PA Wire Photographer: Chris Radburn Provider: Chris Radburn/PA Wire Source: PA Wire
Caption: Embargoed to 2330 Tuesday July 29
File photo dated 27/04/25 of a half-pounder burger and chips in a takeaway carton. Academics have found a link between consuming high levels of ultra processed foods (UPFs) and lung cancer. An international team of researchers tracked the health and food habits of more than 100,000 US adults, with an average age of 63. After an average of 12 years the team identified 1,706 cases of lung cancer. Issue date: Tuesday July 29, 2025. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Philip Toscano/PA Wire Photographer: Philip Toscano Provider: Philip Toscano/PA Wire Source: PA
“Body mass index only explains a small part of the increase,” Professor Montserrat García-Closas, a cancer expert at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, who led the research, said.
The hotspots where it’s most difficult to sell your home
The average length of time to sell a home is just a day longer than a year ago despite higher mortgages, although in London homes are taking nearly a week longer to be snapped up typically, according to a property website.
Caption: Estate agents ‘for sale’ and ‘let’ signs outside residential properties in Guildford, UK, on Monday, July 28, 2025. The number of UK home loans given the green light rose to a three-month high in June, as the housing market continued to shake off the impact of April’s tax hike.??Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images Photographer: Bloomberg Provider: Bloomberg via Getty Images Source: Bloomberg Copyright: ? 2025 Bloomberg Finance LP
A closer look at the figures
33 days
Across the UK, the average time to sell a home is 33 days, just one day longer than last year.
6 days
The London area stands out as being particularly affected by recent events, with the average home there taking six days longer to sell than a year ago, the report found.
The locations on the list of hotspots
Here is how long on average it takes to sell a home, according to Zoopla analysis of the seven weeks to 17 April, 2025 and the seven weeks to 17 April, 2026:
Scotland – 15, 15
North East – 28, 28
Yorkshire and the Humber – 31, 31
North West – 28, 31
Wales – 34, 34
West Midlands – 33, 34
South West – 36, 35
East Midlands – 37, 37
East of England – 35, 38
South East – 37, 39
London – 35, 41
Caption: LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 30: People lok at houses for sale in an estate agents window in Mayfair on October 30, 2025 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by John Keeble/Getty Images) Photographer: John Keeble Provider: Getty Images Source: Getty Images Europe Copyright: 2025 John Keeble
What do experts say?
Mortgage rates are drifting lower and there is greater choice of homes for sale
The best-value homes are moving quickly, particularly in northern cities and Scotland, whereas the room for negotiation is greater across southern regions,” Richard Donnell, executive director of Zoopla said.
Previous research shows how disabled drivers are being treated with open hostility in car parks – with some shouting “scrounger” or “fake” at them.
‘People assume you are cheating the system’
Farah Black, a 50-year-old disabled motorist, said she had experienced people “shouting and swearing – accusing me of not looking disabled” while parking.
“You either get dirty looks or people tell you to f**k off,” she told The i Paper. “They can be so quick to jump to the idea of people cheating the system in some way. It’s very upsetting.”
Black, who lives in Northern Ireland and drives a Motability scheme car, lost their leg after undergoing amputations in 2016 and 2019 following a serious fall.
She said the verbal abuse often only stops when she gets out the car and her amputation and her wheelchair becomes visible.
Black at a Northern Ireland Assembly event on accessible transport (Photo: Michael Cooper/NIA)
Black recalled one incident at a car park in Shropshire when a man shouted “horrific” abuse at her and banged on her car window.
She told The i Paper: “He told me he couldn’t get a f**king parking spot and I shouldn’t be taking a disabled one. I was worried he was going to punch me through my half-open window. He actually hit the glass.
“He was so aggressive – even when I pointed out my blue badge and said I was in a wheelchair. When he saw my amputation, he finally backed off. He called me a f**king bitch and walked off.”
‘I’ve been spat at by a person in a wheelchair’
Black said recent rhetoric around the Motability scheme being “out of control” had increased scepticism and abuse of disabled drivers.
Criticism of the scheme – which leases cars in exchange for upfront payments and the personal independence payment (PIP) benefit – led the Government to remove “luxury” car models and the scheme’s tax breaks at the Budget.
“You can be made to feel like you’re taking something from someone else – it shouldn’t feel like that,” said Black. “We need to do more to make sure disabled people get an equal quality of life.”
The MS Society and other charities have called for more understanding of “invisible” conditions, which are not always obvious to fellow drivers in car parks.
Antje Ronneberger, a 57-year-old from Devon, was diagnosed with relapsing MS in 2019. Her symptoms include balance problems, fatigue and bladder issues.
Antje Ronneberger, who has MS, has been challenged over her use of a blue badge (Photo: Supplied)
“I’ve felt judgement,” Ronneberger said. “My walking distance is limited and I have trouble getting out of a car in a normal space. I’ve had people come up to me and ask, ‘Why are you using a blue badge?’.
“I’ve even been spat at by a person in a wheelchair because they did not think I should be using my blue badge,” she added.
Nick Moberly, chief executive of the MS Society, encouraged people to “listen, learn, and understand” before “saying something that could hurt or offend”.
Why action on fraud could help build trust
Campaigners have also called for a crackdown on blue badge fraud – warning that lack of enforcement by local authorities was undermining trust in the entire scheme.
Black said there was “weak” enforcement of the rules by councils of blue badge misuse – leading to more scepticism and abuse of genuine disabled drivers. “More enforcement would help build trust,” she said.
A disabled badge holder shows their parking permit (Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
The i Paper has previously reported on the rise in fake and stolen blue badges being sold on the black market – with some people also misusing family members’ permits.
We have also investigated the “postcode lottery” when it comes to the blue badge scheme, run by each local authority in very different ways.
Eligibility, parking rules and the number of disabled bays vary depending on the area, with some cash-strapped councils cutting back on access.
A spokesperson for the Local Government Association (LGA) said councils had only “limited resources” to take action against blue badge fraud and theft.
They encouraged people to report people they suspect are illegally using a badge – but also warned residents to keep “bearing in mind people’s need for a badge might not be obvious”.
The Department for Transport (DfT) was contacted for comment.
