A tweet by a Conservative candidate showing Adolf Hitler hugging the public has been branded "disrespectful".

Michelle Lowe, Sevenoaks council's deputy leader, tweeted: "Politicians should go out and show emotion."
She said the intent of the tweet was to show "reserved people" still cared about the suffering of others.
Gary Ridley, the Tory leader in Coventry, where Ms Lowe stood in the general election, said he was "disturbed" by the tweet.
Some Twitter users speculated it was in reaction to backlash against PM Theresa May for her perceived "lack of emotion" in response to the Grenfell Tower deaths.
Mr Ridley said: "I'm disturbed by any attempt to use Adolf Hitler to make a political point."
"He brought pain and suffering to the world on an unimaginable scale and was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.
"To evoke his memory in this way is disrespectful to those who suffered at the hands of this monster and trivialises the crimes of the Nazi regime.
"As Leader of the Conservative Party, in a city which still bears the scars of Nazi aggression, I'm disturbed by any attempt to use Adolf Hitler to make a political point."
This month Ms Lowe failed to get elected as Conservative parliamentary candidate in Coventry South.
"Michelle Lowe doesn't represent, or speak on behalf of, Coventry Conservatives. I'd urge her to reflect on her comments and apologise for any offence which she may have caused," Mr Ridley added.
Councillor Lowe, who represents Otford and Shoreham on Sevenoaks District Council, has responded to the criticism.
She said: "The purpose of the Tweet was not to cause offence but to point out that just because some people are reserved and not as able to be as familiar with strangers as others it does not mean they don't care about their suffering.
"I am sorry for any upset that may have been caused."
Twitter user Jennie Morley said she agreed with Ms Lowe.
"I think it's obvious what the message is: things aren't always what they seem. Good example!" she tweeted.
Ms Lowe was also challenged on social media about whether she was comparing Hitler to the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - who was pictured hugging people after the Grenfell Tower fire.
She replied: "I'm not comparing anyone to anyone. Just posted a tweet."
A spokesman for Shoreham and District Labour Party said: "To liken Mr Corbyn to Hitler, if that is what Councillor Lowe was doing, is inexcusable and possibly the worst insult she could make to a socialist.
"If it was some sort of joke, we find it in the very worst possible taste."
Sevenoaks District Council has yet to comment.


Nearly a fifth of all courts and tribunals in England and Wales are to close, the government has announced.

Eighty-six of 460 courts and tribunal hearing centres will shut as part of "modernisation" plans, HM Courts and Tribunal Service confirmed.
The reforms aim to reduce the Â£500m annual cost of the courts estate.
Ministers said 48% of court buildings were empty at least half of the time last year, but the Law Society warns closures could limit access to justice.
Crown courts, county courts, family courts, youth courts, civil courts and tribunal hearing centres are among the centres that will close.
The government has published a schedule for the closures, with six phases planned between now and September 2017.
In total, 86 of the 91 courts and tribunal hearing centres that had been under consultation for closure will shut, Justice Minister Shailesh Vara confirmed.
On average, the 86 courts due to be closed were only being used for just over a third of their available hearing time - equivalent to fewer than two days a week, he said.
More than 97% of citizens would still be able to reach their required court "by car within an hour" after the closures, he added.
Various groups have opposed the plans.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors, argues that many people using public transport would face long and expensive journeys.
It gave an example of a return journey from one Aylesbury court which had been due to close to the proposed alternative Milton Keynes, which it said would cost Â£71 and was a five-hour round trip.
Malcolm Richardson, national chairman of the Magistrates' Association, a charity which represents magistrates in England and Wales, said many of its members would be "very worried" about the impact of the closures.
"There will be inevitable additional pressure on the system and the paramount concern of magistrates is for accessible justice to be protected," he said.
The family law organisation Resolution, which represents 6,500 family lawyers and other professionals in England and Wales, called the government's plans a "simplistic, ill-thought through exercise".
"Those affected the most by these closures will be vulnerable people such as victims of domestic abuse, young people and those who rely on public transport to get around," it said.
In a written statement, Justice Minister Mr Vara said the closures were necessary because many court buildings were "expensive to maintain yet unsuitable for modern technology".
"Court closures are difficult decisions; local communities have strong allegiances to their local courts and I understand their concerns," he said.
"But changes to the estate are vital if we are to modernise a system which everybody accepts is unwieldy, inefficient, slow, expensive to maintain and unduly bureaucratic."
The following courts will close:
London
Midlands
North East
North West
South East
South West
Wales
The following courts will close with changes to the original government proposals - work will either move to another HM Courts & Tribunals Service site, or an alternative local location. Full details can be found on a court-by-court basis in the government's regional responses.
London
Midlands
North East
North West
South East
Wales
The following courts, which had been under consideration for closure as part of the government's consultation, will remain open:
North West
South West
Wales


German broadcaster ZDF has dropped repeat showings of a popular detective series after it emerged its late star had hidden his Waffen SS past.

Archives released last month reveal Horst Tappert, who played Derrick in the show of the same name, had served in the Totenkopf panzer division.
Tappert, who died in 2008, had remained tight-lipped about his war record.
According to the archives, the 19-year-old panzer grenadier was wounded on the Eastern Front in 1943.
With its motto "My Honour Is Loyalty", the Totenkopf (skull) division became one of the most ruthless units of the Waffen SS - the combat arm of Hitler's SS paramilitary force.
ZDF, the German public TV broadcaster, said it would not show any more repeats of the 281 episodes of Derrick, which were made between 1974 and 1998.
"ZDF is shocked and troubled by the news that Horst Tappert was a member of the Waffen SS," spokesman Peter Bogenschuetz told AFP news agency.
"We have no plans to broadcast any more reruns."
Generations of Germans watched the show set in Munich, with its distinctive, baggy-eyed detective.
The series was popular abroad too, shown on TV screens as far afield as Russia, China and South Africa.
Reacting to the revelations, Dutch public television channel Omroep MAX said it had scrapped plans to show around 20 episodes of Derrick from July.
"I was shocked by the news, you don't expect something like that," chairman Jan Slagter told Dutch national broadcaster NOS over the weekend. "We will not honour an actor who has lied over his past."
Bavaria's interior ministry said it was considering stripping the late actor of an honorary chief police inspector title awarded to Tappert in 1980, German media reported.
Tappert himself said of his war record only that he had served as a medic, AFP reports.
It is not the first such scandal in recent years. In 2006, another famous German, the novelist Guenther Grass, caused consternation when he revealed that he had served as a member of the Waffen SS.


The UK Government should temporarily nationalise Tata Steel's UK operations if the company links up with a German steelmaker, a Plaid Cymru AM has said.

Adam Price, shadow cabinet secretary for finance and economy, said he was "concerned" the sale process had been suspended.
He said a link-up with ThyssenKrupp could be the "death knell" of the industry and lead to job losses.
The Welsh Government is calling for an urgent meeting with the company.
It is looking to clarify the situation and said it remains willing to help.
Mr Price said the link-up would "likely lead to the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks".
The sale of Tata Steel's UK business is on hold as the company considers a European tie-up, creating further uncertainty for British steelworkers.
Speaking after a board meeting in Mumbai, Tata said it had started talks with "strategic players in the steel industry".
Mr Price said: "I am very concerned at the news of the suspension of the sales process and am deeply disappointed that the Wales-led management and worker buyout will not be able to go to the next stage of the process.
"Merger with the German steelmaker would very likely lead to the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks and the concentration of activity at Ijmuiden, and must be opposed at all costs."
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said he was interested to hear the "basis and evidence used to make such bold remarks", adding that the link-up was "encouraging".
"The UK Government is determined to secure a long term sustainable future for steelmaking in south Wales through a variety of multi million pound support measures being made available," he said.


Former England captain John Terry has announced his retirement from international football.

Media playback is not supported on this device
The defender, who has won 78 caps, was cleared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in July of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League game.
But the Chelsea star, 31, still faces a Football Association disciplinary hearing over the matter on Monday.
Terry said the FA's decision to pursue charges against him meant his position with England had become "untenable"
Date of birth: 7 December 1980
3 June 2003: First England cap as a substitute against Serbia and Montenegro
15 August 2004: Replaces Marcel Desailly as Chelsea skipper
19 August 2006: Takes over from David Beckham as England skipper on a permanent basis
5 February 2010: Stripped of England captaincy following a meeting with Fabio Capello
19 March 2011: Restored in the job by Capello
21 December 2011: Crown Prosecution Service announce Terry will be charged with racially abusing Ferdinand
13 July 2012: Cleared in court
23 September 2012: Announces his retirement from England duty after 78 caps
Terry was cleared of abusing Ferdinand following the culmination of his trial on 13 July but was subsequently charged by the FA two weeks later for using alleged "abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour" towards the QPR defender during October's game at Loftus Road.
The court heard accusations Terry had insulted Ferdinand, describing him as "black" and using extreme sexual swear words.
The prosecution had to prove beyond reasonable doubt Terry had used the words in an insulting manner, which it could not.
However, the FA, whose charge includes an alleged "reference to the ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race of Ferdinand", only has to prove its case "on the balance of probabilities".
The defender telephoned England manager Roy Hodgson to inform him of his decision before he released his statement on Sunday evening.
The FA said they would not be commenting on Terry's retirement.
Terry, who had two separate stints as England captain, played in the 5-0 World Cup qualifier victory over Moldova on 7 September. He made his debut in a 2-1 friendly victory over Serbia and Montenegro in 2003.
Terry was appointed as David Beckham's successor as England skipper in 2006 but was stripped of the position in 2010 following allegations he had an affair with then England team-mate Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend.
"John Terry will have been advised by his lawyers that he stands very little chance of winning this case, regardless of him being cleared by a criminal court in July. If found guilty, he will face a lengthy ban, and Roy Hodgson would have come under huge pressure to drop him from England. It is this which has proved decisive in ending one of the more remarkable England playing careers. The FA could and should have reached this point in an increasingly acrimonious saga sooner, but after being told by MPs last week they needed to do more to fight racism in the sport, it's clear they had little choice but to charge Terry. He believes the governing body has a vendetta against him, but it's hard to see what choice they had."
He was re-appointed in March 2011, but the FA relieved him of the role again in February, a decision which precipitated the departure of manager Fabio Capello.
In a statement, Terry said: "I am today announcing my retirement from international football.
"Representing and captaining my country is what I dreamed of as a boy and it has been a truly great honour. I have always given my all and it breaks my heart to make this decision. I want to wish Roy and the team every success for the future.
"I am making this statement today in advance of the hearing of the FA disciplinary charge because I feel the FA, in pursuing charges against me where I have already  been cleared in a court of law, have made my position with the national team untenable.
"I now look forward to playing for Chelsea and challenging for domestic and European honours, and I want to thank the fans and the club for their continued support.
"I would like to thank the England managers who have selected me for my 78 caps. I have had great pleasure in sharing that honour with all the players that I've played with.
"I would like to thank them, the fans and my family for their support and encouragement during my international career."
England face a pair of World Cup qualifiers next month. First they welcome San Marino to Wembley on 12 October and then, four days later, meet Poland in Warsaw.
Media playback is not supported on this device


A display of thousands of ceramic poppies has been installed in Orkney as part of war commemorations.

The 'Poppies: Weeping Window' installation is at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall until June to remember 100 years since the Battle of Jutland.
More than 6,000 British personnel and 2,500 Germans died in the battle in the North Sea in 1916. Most of the British ships were stationed at Scapa Flow.
The sculpture was created by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper.
It was originally installed at the Tower of London in 2014, where 888,246 poppies were displayed, one to honour every death in the British and colonial forces between 1914 and 1918.
The battle, which was fought near the coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula, involved about 250 ships.
The war at sea: 1914-18


Ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) said it aims to complete its rollout of free public access wi-fi on its network and fleet this summer.

The company said it has reached the halfway point in the project and hopes to finish the process in July.
In total, 88 vessels and land-based locations will be switched on.
CalMac said the rollout was taking longer than it had anticipated because of the "challenging geography" of Scotland's west coast.
A firm that was involved in providing wi-fi services to the British armed forces in Afghanistan is working with the ferry operator.
CalMac announced in 2013 that it would rollout wi-fi on its services following a campaign and petition by Barra Youth Council on the Western Isles urging the company to do so.
The first boat to go live was MV Bute on the Wemyss Bay to Rothesay route in February last year.
CalMac said the programme has gathered rapid pace in the last two months.
Project manager Jim McKillop said: "We are now almost halfway through the rollout programme for CalMac public access wi-fi.
"Already we have had some great feedback from communities involved and we are committed to rollout completion by early July."
Mr McKillop added: "I'd like to thank everyone for their patience throughout this project - we're under no illusion about the frustration with some of the delays which have occurred.
"But we are confident that the service which is being put in place is something which will be of significant benefit to communities and visitors alike."
CalMac said that although all vessels will eventually be equipped to offer wi-fi, there will be interruptions to services on "a small number" of longer routes.
These routes may require other technologies in due course to overcome the issue, the company said.
CalMac said these routes involved long crossings of open water and interruptions to services would affect ferries such as MV Isle of Lewis, which would lose its connectivity to the north of Mull until it nears Castlebay on Barra.


A proposed statue in memory of Britain's first female pilot has been rejected for being "underwhelming" and not recognisable as an aviator.

Edith Cook, an exhibition parachutist from Ipswich, took her first flight in a plane in France in 1910.
Critics said the proposals for a statue of her in the town "overlooked" her role as a balloonist and a parachutist.
But the heritage group which put forward the plans said the sculpture needed to be historically accurate.
Suffolk Heritage Aviation Group (SHAG) said Cook could not be "seated in, for instance, in a Spitfire, or clothed in a recognisable flying jacket, just for 'aesthetic' reasons".
Members of the Ipswich Society had raised objections to the plans, saying the statue needed to be "sufficiently well designed to convey a clear message from a distance".
Born in 1878, Cook applied for a position as lady parachutist when she was 20 and completed hundreds of descents through her career.
She learned how to fly in France and had planned to fly across the Irish Sea but died after a parachute accident in Coventry in 1910, aged 31.
"Her significance in aviation history has been sadly overlooked," SHAG said.
Two years ago the group helped dedicate a headstone on her previously unmarked grave in Coventry.
Andy Taylor from the group said it "still very much intends to continue with the project" to install a statue of Cook "if not in her hometown, then in her home county" after the Fore Street plans were rejected.
The council said there had been full support from all committee members for a statue and it would welcome a revised design.


A Belfast man has been charged with murdering his three-month-old daughter on 7 February 2014.

Christopher O'Neill, 25, was first charged with causing grievous bodily harm to Cárágh Walsh in February 2014.
However, within hours of Mr O'Neill appearing in court, Cárágh died.
Mr O'Neill, from Whiterock Road, was then charged with manslaughter, but in July, a senior prosecutor ordered a new post mortem report.
A preliminary enquiry committing Mr O'Neill to the Crown Court to stand trial for his daughter's murder, has been adjourned because of a defence application.
A defence solicitor said he had only received "voluminous papers" in the last few days, including what he described as "quite complex" medical evidence and asked the deputy district judge to adjourn the case for two weeks.
A prosecuting lawyer said she had no objection and releasing Mr O'Neill on continuing bail, the judge told him to come back on 11 September.


A prominent Belfast accountant has been fined £75,000 after two firms he worked for gave inadequate pension advice to customers.

David Watters worked at FGS McClure Watters and Lanyon Astor Buller as a compliance oversight official when they were advising on pension transfers.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found it may have been unnecessary for some customers to leave their defined benefit schemes and move into defined contribution schemes, as advised.
It also found that Mr Watters had not properly managed conflicts of interest at the firms.
During the period from February 2006 to April 2009, the firms Mr Watters worked for provided advice to over 700 members of defined benefit schemes about the merits of transferring out.
The FCA found that Mr Watters had left his staff to design their own process around advising customers about transferring from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes.
This was despite one adviser in particular being directly financially incentivised to encourage customers to transfer.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement at the FCA, said: "It was Mr Watters' responsibility to take reasonable steps to put in place a compliant advice process.
"His failure to do this placed customers at risk of needlessly losing valuable benefits for their retirement."
Lanyon Aston Bulller has agreed to contact affected customers and where loss has been caused, it will pay appropriate redress.
Mr Watters was at one time the managing partner of his own firm which has since been sold.
In 2015 it emerged that Mr Watters claimed that he had come up with the idea that Nama's Northern Ireland loan book should be sold as single lot and was laying claim to fees related to the eventual deal.


The suicide rate at a Manchester prison has been "too high for too long", inspectors have said.

HMP Manchester has seen seven self-inflicted deaths in less than two years, including that of alleged killer Barry Morrow.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons found staff had accepted the deaths as "the way things were in Manchester".
Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick said the prison was not "ensuring lessons were learnt".
He said that while cases of self-harm had decreased from 22 a month in 2009 to 10 a month in 2011, there was "a degree of fatalism in the prison's response" to such incidents.
"Arrangements for caring for prisoners at risk of self-harm or suicide were not poor but there was room for improvement," he said.
"The prison was not active enough in ensuring lessons were learnt from previous cases, both at Manchester and elsewhere, and ensuring they were consistently applied."
He said the prison's management needed to "bear down on this issue with the same determination and skill with which they have successfully addressed so many other issues".
"Just over 20 years ago, Strangeways, as HMP Manchester was generally known, had a notorious reputation," he said.
"It is now completely transformed and in many ways provides a model to which other local prisons should aspire."
The chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, Michael Spurr, said the number of suicides at the prison was "not disproportionate to comparable establishments but there is no complacency".
"The governor and his team will continue to work to further reduce the rate of self-harm and to prevent suicides," he said.
"Every self-inflicted death is a tragedy which impacts not only on families but also on prisoners and prison staff."
He added that he was "pleased that Manchester is assessed as performing well or reasonably well against all four healthy prison tests - safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement".
"This reflects good progress and confirms Manchester is delivering positive outcomes for the public," he said.
Morrow was due to face trial in May over the deaths of Angela Holgate and Alice Huyton, whose strangled bodies were found at Mrs Holgate's home in Southport on 3 December.
He was found hanging in his cell on 9 February and pronounced dead the same day.


A visit to Skye by US hop hop artist Kanye West has inspired a tongue-in-cheek road safety warning from Police Scotland.

The music artist was in the island to shoot a new video, according to newspaper and media reports.
Officers using Police Scotland's Lochaber and Skye Twitter account tweeted a pun-filled message shortly after the media stories appeared.
The officers signed off with #HipHopCops.
The tweet made reference to West's wife Kim Kardashian and her reality TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians.
It read: "Out in your #Kardashin around #Skye this summer? We'll be #KeepingUp with you so #Kanye please drive sensibly? #OpRoute #HipHopCops".
West's visit to Skye was the cause of a Twitter Moment, a feature of the social media website that gathers stories and tweets about major events in one place on the site.


Winger Gerard Deulofeu can leave Everton before the January transfer window closes in order to get more games, boss Ronald Koeman says.

Koeman also said on Thursday that the future of England defender Phil Jagielka "depends if there is interest from other clubs".
The Toffees have rejected a bid from AC Milan to take Deulofeu, 22, on loan for the remainder of the season.
Deulofeu has made 13 appearances for Everton this season.
"I spoke to Gerard and it's a difficult situation for the player," said Koeman. "If he finds a solution to go and get game-time then it's no problem.
"But the final decision will be down to the board."
Everton are waiting to see if Milan will come back with a new offer.
Ajax is another potential destination for a player who can leave but is expected to cost a loan fee.
Middlesbrough have also been linked with a January move for Deulofeu.
The Spaniard joined Everton on loan from Barcelona for the 2013-14 season, making the transfer permanent in 2015 for £4.3m.
Jagielka, 34, has been linked with a move to Sunderland, managed by former Everton boss David Moyes.
He joined the Toffees in July 2007 from Sheffield United and has gone on to make over 300 appearances for the club.
Everton also remain interested in signing Manchester United winger Memphis Depay during the winter transfer window, though he is likely to join French side Lyon.


Six of the biggest movie studios have sued Megaupload and its key operators, including founder Kim Dotcom.

They have alleged the site and its operators "facilitated, encouraged, and profited" from copyright infringement.
Megaupload was one of the largest file-sharing sites before it was shut by US regulators in 2012 who have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (Â£320m) in lost revenue.
Mr Dotcom has denied those charges, saying the site was a storage service.
In a statement, Steven Fabrizio, global general counsel of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said: "When Megaupload.com was shut down in 2012 by US law enforcement, it was by all estimates the largest and most active infringing website targeting creative content in the world."
The MPAA alleged that Megaupload used to pay users for uploading popular content and as a result was not a storage service.
"Megaupload was built on an incentive system that rewarded users for uploading the most popular content to the site, which was almost always stolen movies, TV shows and other commercial entertainment content," said Mr Fabrizio.
"It paid users based on how many times the content was downloaded by others - and didn't pay at all until that infringing content was downloaded 10,000 times.
"Megaupload wasn't a cloud storage service at all, it was an unlawful hub for mass distribution," he added.
However, Mr Dotcom rejected those claims. He tweeted that files bigger than 100MB in size "did not earn rewards".
"Hollywood claims that we were paying users to upload pirated movies. Stupid."
Mr Dotcom has fought a long-running legal battle over the case in New Zealand where he lives.
He is fighting extradition to the US over charges of copyright infringement on a "massive scale".
Megaupload had about 150 million registered users before it was shut down. At one point it was estimated to be the 13th most frequently visited website.
In January 2013, a year after the closure of MegaUpload, Mr Dotcom set up Mega, which also allows users to host and share large files on the internet.


Fifa has hired a consulting firm with links to America's failed bid to secure the 2022 World Cup.

The BBC has learnt New York-based Teneo Holdings has been retained in the wake of the criminal investigation launched into football's world governing body by the US Department of Justice in May.
The company's president is Doug Band, who served as a director on the US 2022 World Cup bid committee.
Band, together with Fifa executive committee member Sunil Gulati and others, made the final World Cup bid presentation to high-ranking officials in Zurich in 2010. He served as a close adviser to President Bill Clinton during his years in the White House.
Band then stayed with Clinton after his presidency ended, helping him establish in 2005 the Clinton Global Initiative, which has raised billions of dollars for worthwhile causes.
Clinton acted as honorary chairman for the US 2022 bid committee and initially served as a senior advisor to Teneo. He stepped down from the position in 2012.
The US made it through to the final round of the 2022 World Cup vote in December 2010, losing out to Qatar.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Teneo is believed to have been hired by Fifa following advice from Quinn Emmanuel, the American law firm working on its behalf.
Teneo describes itself as "a global advisory firm" which "is focused on working with clients to address a wide range of financial, reputational and transformational challenges and opportunities".
It's understood the firm's links with senior politicians and with the US Department of Justice were a motivating factor for Fifa's choice as it seeks to mitigate the legal and financial threats facing it.
The indictment from the DoJ in May led to the arrest and detention of 14 football officials and sports marketing executives on charges of "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption following a major inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The DoJ insists its investigations are only just beginning.
Teneo's links with the upper echelons of US politics are well established.
Senator George Mitchell is listed as a senior adviser to the firm.
Mitchell is a former Senate majority leader and was appointed as special envoy to Northern Ireland by Clinton in 1995. In 2009, Hilary Clinton, in her capacity as US Secretary of State, appointed him as US special envoy to the Middle East.
Mitchell is also known for his work in baseball, having led a 2006 investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs by players.
Teneo has expertise in handling companies that face investigations and has a specialist sport practice which lists Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James as clients.
The company recently bought Blue Rubicon - a PR firm that has worked closely with the Qatar 2022 World Cup supreme committee for a number of years.
A Fifa spokesperson told the BBC: "Fifa has retained global advisory firm Teneo to work across operational and reputational priorities."
Teneo declined to comment.


The SNP's Ian Blackford has insisted that the prime minister should end "in work poverty" by backing a pay rise for public sector employees.

During PMQs in the Commons, he told Theresa May that too many people had "paid the price" for austerity.
The Conservative leader replied that the best route out of poverty was for people to be in work.
She pointed to tax cuts and the national living wage as ways to give workers "real help".
Mr Blackford, the SNP's Westminster leader, challenged Mrs May on whether she was "looking out for the just about managing".
He said: "The UK government has not announced any measures to address rising inflation and slowing wage growth which the IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) has described as dreadful.
"As workers face more than a decade of lost wage growth and endure the worst period for pay in 70 years, does the Prime Minister think she's looking out for the just about managing?"
Mrs May insisted that what was important was ensuring that "we have an economy which is increasing the number of jobs".
She went on: "Because the best route out of poverty is for people to be in work, that is what we are doing. We've seen nearly three million more jobs being created over recent years, that's important for people.
"We also help people for example by cutting taxes, it's exactly what we've done for people who are lower paid. Introducing that national living wage, these are measures that are giving people real help."
Mr Blackford raised concerns about in-work poverty, arguing that workers have "paid the price" for austerity.
However, Mrs May maintained that the government's monetary policy had helped create jobs in the economy.
Former investment banker Mr Blackford said: "Of course it's the forecast of a rise in in-work poverty that should concern us, in particular the likely increase of young people in poverty over the lifetime of this Parliament.
"Since the 2010 general election, the FTSE has risen by 39.6%, monetary policy, not least quantitative easing has helped drive up financial assets while workers have paid the price for austerity.
"Workers will earn no more by 2020/21 than they did in 2008. Will the Prime Minister give workers a pay rise?"
Mrs May replied: "I would have thought that particularly with his background he would have recognised the role that monetary policy, including the quantitative easing, has done in ensuring that we are able to see those jobs in the economy that are so important for people."
Earlier at PMQs, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the government of "flip flopping and floundering" over public sector pay.
He said that the government was "recklessly exploiting the goodwill of public servants" through the 1% pay cap and called for it to be scrapped.


Police have appealed for information about a road crash in County Down that left a teenager critically injured.

A car and a van were in collision on Burren Road, near Warrenpoint, at about 14:20 GMT on Friday.
Insp Stephen Graham said a passenger in the car "is reported to have been seen making off from the scene across nearby fields whilst the driver of the car remained trapped in the vehicle".
The police helicopter took the 18-year-old man to hospital in Belfast.
The driver of the van was treated in a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries.
A police patrol car came upon the scene of the collision, and the office of the Police Ombudsman has been informed about the incident.


Discussing female menstruation publicly is something of a taboo in Zambia.

This is no doubt why a provision in the country's labour law that allows female workers to take off one day a month is known as Mother's Day, even though it applies to all women, whether or not they have children.
The legal definition is not precise - women can take the day when they want and do not have to provide any medical justification, leading some to question the provision.
"I think it's a good law because women go through a lot when they are on their menses [periods]," says Ndekela Mazimba, who works in public relations.
Ms Mazimba is neither married nor does she have children but she takes her Mother's Day every month because of her gruelling period pains.
"You might find that on the first day of your menses, you'll have stomach cramps - really bad stomach cramps. You can take whatever painkillers but end up in bed the whole day.
"And sometimes, you find that someone is irritable before her menses start, but as they progress, it gets better. So, in my case, it's just the first day to help when the symptoms are really bad."
Women in Zambia do not need to make prior arrangements to be absent from work, but can simply call in on the day to say they are taking Mother's Day.
An employer who denies female employees this entitlement can be prosecuted.
Ms Mazimba's boss, Justin Mukosa, supports the law and says he understands the pressure women face in juggling careers and family responsibilities.
A married man himself, he says the measure can have a positive impact on women's work:
"Productivity is not only about the person being in the office. It should basically hinge on the output of that person."
But he admits there are problems with the current system in terms of losing staff at short notice and also the temptation for people to play the system:
"It could be abused in the context that maybe an individual might have some personal plans they wish to attend to so she takes Mother's Day on the day.
Not everyone is so supportive of Mother's Day, and there are many women among the critics.
Mutinta Musokotwane-Chikopela is married and has three children.
She has a full-time marketing job but never takes Mother's Day, arguing that it encourages laziness in working women.
"I don't believe in it and I don't take it. Menses are a normal thing in a woman's body; it's like being pregnant or childbirth," she says.
"I think women take advantage of that, especially that there's no way of proving that you are on your menses or not."
Ms Chikopela says the provision should have been made more clear in the law.
"The problem in Zambia is that we have too many holidays - including a holiday for national prayers. So I guess Mother's Day makes those that love holidays happy."
The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the umbrella body representing the country's workers, is also a supporter of the law.
But the entitlement "would have to be forfeited" if a woman were to take it on a day that she was not on her period, says Catherine Chinunda, national trustee at ZCTU.
"We have been educating women about Mother's Day, telling them that on that day, they are supposed to rest and not even go shopping or do other jobs because that is wrong," she says.
The law itself provides no guidance about what is allowed and it would appear that very few, if any, employers have internal policy guidance in that respect.
She dismisses the idea that men should also get a day off every month, as has been suggested by some:
"Men sometimes go to drink and miss workâ€¦. they don't know how it feels to be on menses."
But while praising the concept of Mother's Day, some argue that the reality is bad for business.
"Your superiors may have planned work for you to do and when you suddenly stay away from work, it means work will suffer, says Harrington Chibanda, head of the Zambia Federation of Employers.
"Imagine a company that has a number of employees and six or seven take Mother's Day on the same day. What will happen to productivity?"  he asks.
Labour Minister Joyce Nonde-Simukoko, a former trade union activist, tells me that Mother's Day was initially informally observed in the 1990s before eventually being brought into law.
But she has stern words for anyone thinking of using the entitlement to bunk off work:
"If you absent yourself yet you are found in a disco house, then it will not be taken as Mother's Day.
"You shouldn't even leave town, be found doing your hair or shopping. You can be fired. For example, somebody was found farming after taking Mother's Day and she was fired."
One of the problems with the law is that it does not make this explicit, leading to confusion among employers and employees alike.
But perhaps even more than the practical benefits,  it is the intention and the spirit of the legislation that many Zambians support.
As Linda Kasonde, a senior lawyer, tells me:
"The reason why mother's day is important within the Zambian context is that it recognises that women are the primary care-givers in our society - regardless of whether they are married or not."


Manchester City delivered an ominous message to their Premier League title rivals as leaders Arsenal were thrashed.

Manuel Pellegrini's side closed the gap on the Gunners to three points with another in a growing list of devastating attacking displays at home this season.
And they have piled on the agony for North London's two contenders as Arsenal suffered following City's recent 6-0 demolition of Tottenham.
Media playback is not supported on this device
The visitors may point to some questionable offside calls and a rejected penalty claim - but in reality they were ultimately blown away by the sheer firepower of a City side who have now scored 35 league goals at home this season and in 58 consecutive games at Etihad Stadium.
City are not simply beating teams at home, they are dismantling them and if they can replicate part of this form away from home they must surely be title favourites.
Sergio Aguero's early goal was cancelled out by Theo Walcott but Alvaro Negredo put City back in front before half-time.
City's potency was not reduced by a calf injury to Aguero, with Fernandinho extending their lead before Walcott's second restored some optimism for Arsene Wenger's side.
But the hosts were coming at Arsenal from all angles, with David Silva and Fernandinho again finding the target before Per Mertesacker's header made it 5-3 in stoppage time.
City's brilliance deserved the final word - and so it proved as Yaya Toure's penalty gave them another six goals in what is become a catalogue of virtuoso performances at home.
City have scored in 58 consecutive Premier League home games, a run stretching back to a 0-0 draw with Birmingham in November 2010.
As expected, City manager Pellegrini restored Costel Pantilimon in goal, despite Joe Hart playing his part in the midweek Champions League win against holders Bayern Munich in the Allianz Arena.
Aguero has been City's spearhead and he was at it again after only 13 minutes, showing perfect technique once more to sweep in a right-foot volley after Martin Demichelis had flicked on Samir Nasri's corner.
Negredo has proved a potent partner for Aguero and he should have added a second from Vincent Kompany's pass but could only find the side-netting.
Arsenal got some encouragement when a poor punch from Pantilimon landed at the feet of Mesut Ozil but the German could not take advantage.
It was a short reprieve for City as Arsenal were level just after the half-hour. Toure was guilty of conceding possession to Aaron Ramsey and then Ozil crossed for Walcott to side-foot past Pantilimon from the edge of the area.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Arsenal were only on equal terms for seven minutes, though, before Negredo made no mistake with a sliding near-post finish from Pablo Zabaleta, who had crossed after being found by Toure's perfect pass.
There was further bad news for Arsenal in the aftermath of the goal with defender Laurent Koscielny sustaining a deep laceration to his knee trying to stop Negredo and being taken off on a stretcher.
City suffered a setback of their own early in the second half when Aguero, who seemed to be holding the back of his calf, limped off to be replaced by Jesus Navas.
Pellegrini's side, however, have a rich variety of scoring sources and Fernandinho showed his threat five minutes after the break when he took aim and curled a low 25-yard shot out of the reach of the stretching Wojciech Szczesny.
Arsenal were not giving up and had a penalty claim rejected for handball against Zabaleta from Jack Wilshere's through-ball - with Olivier Giroud also glancing a header wide from Bacary Sagna's cross.
And their continuing threat was confirmed when Walcott got his second to give the Gunners hope again, another curling drive that flew into the top corner.
Sergio Aguero has 19 goals in all competitions this season, including 13 in the Premier League - one more than his league tally last campaign.
However, Arsenal's problem was they had no answer to City's pace, power and skill on the attack and Silva opened up the two-goal gap again after 66 minutes, giving Szczesny no chance from Navas's cross.
Pantilimon had endured a mixed game but illustrated why Pellegrini has placed his faith in him with a flying one-handed stop from Wilshere.
But City looked unstoppable going forward and more pressure was rewarded late on when Fernandinho slipped through some flimsy Arsenal defending to score the fifth.
Mertesacker's injury-time header provided nothing in the way of consolation as there was still time for City to score again, Toure beating Szczesny from the spot after the keeper brought down substitute James Milner.
See a photo gallery of all the action from Saturday's Premier League matches on the BBC Sport Facebook site.
Match ends, Manchester City 6, Arsenal 3.
Second Half ends, Manchester City 6, Arsenal 3.
Goal!  Manchester City 6, Arsenal 3. Yaya Touré (Manchester City) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Penalty Manchester City. James Milner draws a foul in the penalty area.
Penalty conceded by Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal) after a foul in the penalty area.
Goal!  Manchester City 5, Arsenal 3. Per Mertesacker (Arsenal) header from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Bacary Sagna with a cross following a corner.
Corner,  Arsenal. Conceded by Costel Pantilimon.
Attempt saved. Theo Walcott (Arsenal) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Nicklas Bendtner with a through ball.
Attempt missed. Theo Walcott (Arsenal) right footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Serge Gnabry.
Corner,  Arsenal. Conceded by Álvaro Negredo.
Corner,  Arsenal. Conceded by Costel Pantilimon.
Attempt saved. Theo Walcott (Arsenal) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Foul by Fernandinho (Manchester City).
Theo Walcott (Arsenal) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Substitution, Manchester City. Javi García replaces Samir Nasri.
Offside, Arsenal. Nacho Monreal tries a through ball, but Nicklas Bendtner is caught offside.
Goal!  Manchester City 5, Arsenal 2. Fernandinho (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Samir Nasri.
Attempt missed. Samir Nasri (Manchester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by James Milner.
Foul by Samir Nasri (Manchester City).
Serge Gnabry (Arsenal) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Fernandinho (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jack Wilshere (Arsenal).
Corner,  Manchester City. Conceded by Wojciech Szczesny.
Attempt saved. Fernandinho (Manchester City) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Samir Nasri.
Attempt blocked. Samir Nasri (Manchester City) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Yaya Touré.
Vincent Kompany (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Vincent Kompany (Manchester City).
Thomas Vermaelen (Arsenal) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt missed. Yaya Touré (Manchester City) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Samir Nasri with a cross following a corner.
Corner,  Manchester City. Conceded by Bacary Sagna.
Attempt missed. Yaya Touré (Manchester City) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Samir Nasri.
Substitution, Arsenal. Nicklas Bendtner replaces Olivier Giroud.
Offside, Manchester City. James Milner tries a through ball, but Álvaro Negredo is caught offside.
Corner,  Manchester City. Conceded by Nacho Monreal.
Attempt missed. Jesús Navas (Manchester City) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Samir Nasri with a through ball.
Foul by Serge Gnabry (Arsenal).
Fernandinho (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Substitution, Arsenal. Serge Gnabry replaces Mathieu Flamini.
Substitution, Manchester City. James Milner replaces David Silva.


A boy in Australia had to battle through a case of the hiccups whilst performing the Australian national anthem.

22 November 2015 Last updated at 12:13 GMT
Seven-year-old Ethan was performing the song before an Australian Baseball League match between the Brisbane Bandits and the Adelaide Bite.
At the end of the performance, the crowd in the stadium gave him a huge round of applause.
He then ran around the pitch getting high fives from all the baseball players.
Video courtesy of the Australian Baseball League.


A woman accused of urinating on US presidential hopeful Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course will not face court action.

Rohan Beyts, 62, said she had to "answer the call of nature" at sand dunes after walking on the beach near the Menie resort in April.
She was told staff had filmed her, and was reported to the procurator fiscal.
Mrs Beyts said she was "relieved" at the Crown Office news. Trump Golf Scotland expressed surprise.
Mrs Beyts said she was now pursuing a civil action for being filmed.
The retired social worker told the BBC Scotland news website she was "absolutely relieved" and said: "All the way along I have felt this has been a nonsense. I did not do anything wrong.
"I had no option when I needed to answer the call of nature.
"My friend turned round to give me a bit of privacy and we joked we hoped the were no CCTV cameras.
"When I discovered men had been filming me I felt really uncomfortable - mortified.
"It's ironic they said my act was disgusting but you hear about Donald Trump's claims about women. I know which I think are disgusting.
"If this had involved any other golf course no-one would have been interested.
"I feel totally vindicated."
A Crown Office spokesperson confirmed: "Following a review of all facts and circumstances the case, including new evidence which has come to light, the procurator fiscal instructed there be no proceedings."
Sarah Malone, of Trump Golf Scotland, said: "It's surprising that someone causing a nuisance and urinating in public is not prosecuted but this is a matter for the police and the procurator fiscal.
"She has absolutely no case against us and the claims made are baseless, untrue and quite frankly ridiculous.
"We will continue to rigorously defend our business from activists and troublemakers like this."
Mr Trump opened his Menie course in July 2012 after lengthy opposition from local residents and environmentalists.
The course, which is owned by Trump International Golf Club Scotland, lost just under Â£1.1m in 2015.


The hen harrier, an iconic bird of prey, is heading towards the brink of extinction in England, new figures suggest.

There are just four breeding pairs left in England and numbers are declining elsewhere in the UK.
Scotland is the traditional stronghold of these raptors, but numbers have fallen 9% since 2010.
Numbers of hen harrier pairs in Wales fell by more than a third over the same period.
The birds of prey live primarily on heather moorland. The males are easily identified by their black wing tips.
The females look completely different, with puffy brown plumage that helps camouflage them and their nests.
But this iconic species is under severe threat, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Illegal killings, along with destruction of their habitat, are behind the collapse of their population in England. Numbers fell from twelve pairs in 2010 to just four in 2016.
Numbers of pairs in Scotland fell from 505 to 460 over the period, while in Wales they declined from 57 to 35 breeding pairs.
In Northern Ireland, pairs fell from 59 recorded in 2010 to 46 in 2016.
Hen harriers feed on grouse, which has brought conservationists into conflict with managers of estates involved in grouse shooting.
Martin Harper, conservation director at the RSPB, said: "The latest figures back up a continued trend that we have seen for more than a decade - hen harrier numbers are on the decline throughout the UK.
"The illegal killing of this bird of prey is a significant factor behind the diminishing numbers and a large barrier stopping their recovery."
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "We take the protection of wildlife extremely seriously and have robust measures in place to protect all wild birds, including the hen harrier.
"Anyone who kills or injures a wild bird is committing an offence and could face jail if convicted."
Historically, hen harriers were once much more widespread before being driven to extinction in mainland Britain during the 19th Century.
Despite a subsequent comeback, the species has remained rare - and therefore vulnerable - in the UK, with a breeding population under 1,000 pairs.
Longer term figures highlight the dramatic decline in the UK hen harrier population over the past 12 years.
The national survey in 2004 pointed to an estimated 749 pairs, meaning hen harrier numbers have fallen by 204 pairs (39%) in the succeeding years.
Mr Harper added: "Without purposeful action from all, including governments across the UK and the shooting industry, we may see hen harriers once again lost from more parts of the country."
Follow Paul on Twitter.


Belfast City Council has been granted an injunction by the High Court preventing more materials being added to loyalist bonfires at four sites in the east of the city.

It is understood police can now prevent further material being added.
Belfast City Council said the injunction results from public concern about the size of the bonfires.
The council said the injunction is about preventing further material being brought on to the four sites.
The injunction also prevents anyone from staying on the sites.
It will not prevent the bonfires from taking place, but is to stop them getting any bigger.
The sites are:
Bonfires are traditionally lit in loyalist areas of Northern Ireland on the eve of the annual 12 July celebrations marking King William III's victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Supt Robert Murdie said the PSNI was committed to working with the council to tackle the issues surrounding bonfires in east Belfast and the wider city, in consultation with the affected communities.
"We have now written to the council with regard to the details of the injunction - and so it would be inappropriate to comment further ahead of their response," he added.
Sinn FÃ©in councillor Jim McVeigh welcomed the injunction.
"The gathering and storing of materials has disrupted the use of some of these sites and by burning of these large pyres council property would be further destroyed," he said.
"It is now critically important that the PSNI and Belfast City Council act upon these injunctions to ensure that the dangerous material already gathered at these sites is safely removed in order to protect the people, homes and property in the vicinity of these illegal bonfires."
Alliance Cllr Sian O'Neill said the "application for this injunction was supported by all the parties".
"We call on everyone in our community to ensure a safe and legal Eleventh Night by respecting this measure, and the authority of those with the responsibility to uphold it, or risk being made subject to the courts," she said.


A female Pakistani teacher who died of severe burns last month did not take her own life, as local police had claimed, a fact finding mission says.

Maria Sadaqat's family say she was attacked and set on fire at her home in Murree after turning down a suitor.
Local police arrested four men - but later said the case was a suicide and released the men on bail.
The investigation was "flawed" and the death had been painted "as suicide rather than murder", the mission said.
Ms Sadaqat, 19, suffered severe burns on 29 May, with local media reporting she had sustained 85% burns.
Ms Sadaqat gave statements to the police in hospital, naming several men as her attackers, before she died on 1 June.
Police initially arrested four men, including the owner of a school where Ms Sadaqat taught not far from the capital Islamabad.
Ms Sadaqat's family said the attackers had wanted revenge because she had rejected a marriage proposal from the school owner's son, because he was already married with a child.
However, a police investigation concluded a month later that the victim had taken her own life, leading to the release of the suspects on bail.
On Wednesday, a committee by the Supreme Court Bar Association said Ms Sadaqat could not have committed suicide and that the nature of her burn injuries suggested she had been attacked.
"Neither Maria's hands were burnt nor her feet were burnt," Supreme Court Bar President Ali Zafar told reporters, adding that this matched her statement where she said she had been held to the ground by four men.
The fact finding panel had gathered information from the scene of the attack and interviewed family members, doctors and police.
Its report also suggests that there had been a campaign of "character assassination" against the victim and her family, probably in an effort to silence them.
"The mission strongly feels that flawed investigations encourage crimes against women and this is one of the reasons that honour killings are on the rise," the report said.
Nearly 1,100 women were killed in so-called honour killings in Pakistan last year, the country's independent Human Rights Commission says.
Violence against women is common in Pakistan and is often connected to a perceived slight or loss of honour, as is alleged to have occurred in Maria Sadaqat's case.
Often such violence goes unreported - and most of it takes place within the family.
In many cases - although not in Maria Sadaqat's - relatives hoping to keep the family name out of the news prefer to make out-of-court settlements.
Punjab province, where the attack on her happened, passed a landmark law in February criminalising all forms of violence against women.
However, more than 30 religious groups, including all the mainstream Islamic political parties, threatened to launch protests if the law was not repealed.


The Brazilian senate has impeached Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff for illegally manipulating government accounts.

Here we take a closer look at the impeachment proceedings and how we got here.
Simply put, Ms Rousseff was accused of breaking fiscal laws.
She was found guilty of moving funds between government budgets, which is illegal under Brazilian law.
Her critics said she was trying to plug deficit holes in popular social programmes to boost her chances of being re-elected for a second term in October 2014.
Ms Rousseff denied having done anything illegal and said that moving money between budgets was common practice among her predecessors in office.
Ms Rousseff alleged that the impeachment proceedings were tantamount to a coup d'etat against her.
She said the proceedings were being used by her enemies to remove her from office without having to wait for the next presidential election.
Her main rival and a driving force behind the impeachment was the former speaker of the house, Eduardo Cunha.
Mr Cunha's opponents said he was a political opportunist who had switched sides to increase his influence and that of his PMDB party.
To back up their claim, they pointed to the fact that the PMDB stood to win from the suspension of Ms Rousseff.
Under Brazil's constitution, the vice-president takes over on an interim basis if the president is suspended from office.
That is how the PMDB's Michel Temer went from being Ms Rousseff's vice-president to inaugurating the Olympic Games as Brazil's acting president.
However, things did not work out smoothly for Mr Cunha either. He had to resign in July over corruption allegations, which he denies.
Ms Rousseff's approval ratings have plummeted from their all-time high of 79% in March 2013 to about 10% in March 2016.
There were mass demonstrations in major Brazilian cities demanding that she resign.
But there were also smaller rallies in her support.
Many Brazilians said they were fed up with the high levels of corruption in Brazilian politics.
But with some of the politicians who backed her impeachment also under investigation for either mismanagement or corruption, no party seems untouched by the allegations.
The lower house of Congress voted on 17 April on whether impeachment proceedings against Ms Rousseff should go ahead.
In a late-night session, 367 out of 513 lawmakers voted in favour, comfortably reaching the two-thirds threshold needed for the matter to be passed to the Senate.
A vote in the Senate followed in May, in which 55 senators voted in favour of the impeachment process going ahead and 22 against.
Another vote was held in the Senate in August which the senators decided by 59 to 21 votes that there was enough evidence against Ms Rousseff to proceed to the trial phase.
On 31 August, the Senate voted 61 to 20 in favour of Ms Rousseff's impeachment.
Michel Temer, who served as Ms Rousseff's vice-president and who has been the acting president since her suspension in May, will be officially sworn in as president later on Wednesday.
He will serve out Ms Rousseff's term in office, which is due to end on 1 January 2019.


An iconic Cold War British Vulcan bomber has made its final flight over Welsh skies.

The Vulcan XH558 took part in the North Wales Air Show at Rhyl, Denbighshire, on Saturday as part of a final series of displays which end in September.
More than 180,000 people are expected at the air show over the weekend.
The aircraft was operational from the 1950s to 1985. Charity Vulcan to the Sky Trust said the restored aircraft was beyond its flying hours.
Denbighshire council said it had received Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) guidance after the Shoreham air crash last weekend, adding safety would be a top priority at the show in Rhyl.


A dolphin nicknamed Kenobi appears to have the Jedi skills of her Star Wars namesake.
The young animal, part of a large group of bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth, was named after the movie's lightsaber-wielding character Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Kenobi's mother is called Chewbacca and her sibling is known as Yoda, both names of Star Wars characters. They were given to them by scientists at University of Aberdeen's Cromarty Field Station.
Kenobi was photographed on Saturday playing with a long piece of seaweed.
The images were taken by Highlands wildlife tour operator, EcoVentures, Cromarty.
A spokesperson for the Cromarty-based business said: "One of our most favourite dolphins is young Kenobi.
"They certainly do all have their very individual characters and she is one of the most playful, mischievous and inquisitive of them all.
"She found a piece of seaweed which proved to be a huge entertainment for her, and us."
The Moray Firth's dolphins have previously been photographed playing with an unfortunate flounder and a jellyfish.
In the Star Wars films, Jedi master Obi-Wan was famously played in the early films by Sir Alec Guinness and later by Ewan McGregor.


Steven Naismith says he "regrets" describing Rangers as a new club when he left Ibrox in 2012.

The attacker did not want to be part of the regime of Charles Green, who fronted the consortium that bought the business and assets of Rangers Football Club plc in liquidation.
He left in June 2012 and joined Everton as a free agent the following month.
"Nothing changed as a football club and that's where I was wrong," Norwich City's Naismith told BBC Scotland.
"At the time, I was panicking about the legal situation, 'If I say this, they can do that'. I was being guided on what to say.
"I can understand why [Rangers fans weren't happy]. Even some of my mates have chinned me about it.
"You were walking a tightrope, worried about what to say from a legal side of things. But, for me, the club was still the same, everything was still the same.
"It's one of the biggest regrets of my career. I still support Rangers and want them to get back challenging."
Under corporate law, Rangers players had the option of transferring their contracts to the new company, but Naismith, along with several others - including Steven Whittaker, chose to leave.
Naismith and Whittaker held a news conference at which the former said his "loyalty was with Rangers. I've never met anyone from Sevco [the company Green formed to buy the business and assets]".
"As players, we didn't come out of it the way that we wanted because we didn't have our squad the same and we weren't challenging for titles as we wanted," Naismith said.
"Rangers have suffered massively and the club was put into the hands of the wrong people. Everybody else has suffered for that and it's really sad.
"I was 25. To go back to the Third Division with [Green], who'd probably force me out the club to somewhere I probably wasn't keen on going, and I wasn't sure that money would help Rangers - I would have lost my international career.
"Ideally, I would have stayed, but when you take your whole family and everything about it [into account], I couldn't take that risk.
"Maybe if better people had said, 'this is what we're going to do to build this club back and we're going to be challenging', that makes the decision much easier.
"The one thing I can walk away from it and look at is all the people who had part-time jobs, to the tea ladies, who probably worked the hardest and are there, that security for them was the biggest thing that came out of it for us."
Naismith and other senior players took 75% pay cuts in February 2012 when Rangers went into administration, which allowed younger players on lower wages and other staff to take smaller pay cuts.
That process was long and drawn out, though, which left Naismith feeling on edge about events at the club.
"Sad, very sad," he said when asked how he feels about his departure.
"There are regrets on my part on some of the things that were said. As a group of players, from that day we got told we were going into administration, we couldn't have done any more.
"We thought we'd cracked it, take a 75% wage cut and things will recover. We wanted assurances [for the other staff] and what about an 18-year-old just in the squad?
"We were speaking to lawyers and Greegsy [goalkeeper Allan McGregor] came up with a way. But it boiled down to the administrators [Duff and Phelps] saying they didn't want to do it that way. We gave them a viable way to move forward and thought, 'this isn't right at all'.
"It got worse and worse. Things just kept coming out, which you were thinking, 'that isn't right'. Charles Green came in and it was the same thing: 'everything's going to be rosy, don't worry', but what went on from when he came in to when I left, I was thinking, 'I can't trust this guy with my career'.
"If I knew Rangers were going to get [transfer] money, I'd have stayed. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't trust that guy with my career."
Naismith spent five years at Rangers, winning three league titles, two Scottish League Cups and one Scottish Cup.
He looks back on the day that the Ibrox side won the 2010-11 championship at the home of his former club, Kilmarnock, as one of the highlights of his career.
Naismith scored the second goal as Rangers raced into a three-goal lead after seven minutes in the final game of the season, one they needed to win to secure the title, in what was also Walter Smith's final game as manager.
"The best day for me is winning the league on the last day at Kilmarnock, 3-0 up after seven minutes, because it's the perfect day," Naimsith said.
"You need to win, early kick-off, after a minute we're 1-0 up, 2-0 up after four minutes, 3-0 after seven minutes, then you know you've won the league and you can just enjoy the day.
"We won [the league] at Dundee United, Hibs and Kilmarnock, so the bus journey home was incredible. Playing in the Champions League, winning trophies, so many [memories]."
Naismith grew up in Ayrshire supporting Rangers and says he wants to spend the final years of his career in Scotland.
His preference would be to do that at Ibrox or Rugby Park, where his career started, but for now says there is unfinished business for him at Carrow Road.
"I would never say never, because if I was coming back to Scotland then personally I would love it [returning to Rangers]," the 30-year-old said.
"There's a lot of water under the bridge, they've moved forward under a new manager and, at the moment, I feel I still owe Norwich something.
"Last season wasn't a great season and I've probably not played my best football in that time. I want to repay what they've done for me.
"I'll definitely play [in Scotland] before I finish, I love the football, it's where I started. So I will come back and play in Scotland."


Surrey's quest to clinch the Division Two title remains in tact despite rain washing out day one of their match against Northants at The Oval.

Persistent rain in the capital saw play abandoned at 15:30 BST.
However, Surrey's title challengers Lancashire also saw the opening day against Essex abandoned at Chelmsford.
Surrey, who have already won promotion along with the Red Rose county, need 17 points to guarantee going up as champions.
Victory for Northants could see them finish third if Essex fail to win nine points.


Many pop fans rejoiced at S Club 7's reunion during BBC's Children In Need.

The seven-piece, back together after 12 years, performed a medley of their biggest hits including S Club Party.
It was during that modern masterpiece there was one momentous moment, carried off by Paul Cattermole.
During his four seconds of 'Paul's getting down on the floor', he managed to throw some shapes that David Brent would have been proud of.
Inevitably, his dancing was soon being compared to the genius of Ricky Gervais' character.
During Newsbeat's chat with the band, we brought up the comparison and Paul gave a wide, cheeky smile.
"Fair play," he said. "I saw another Vine which had me and him side-by-side. There is a massive similarity between the two things. There is!"
To date, a Vine of the clip has had more than 300-thousand loops.
Tina chipped in: "Can I say that is my favourite bit from Friday. Paul's little 'Paul's getting down on the floor' dance."
Bradley too: "My mate called me up saying that Paul's bit was wicked too."
When we asked Paul whether he could actually carry out the action from S Club Party, he told us that in his "old, geriatric age" he "can't really get down anymore."
Following their TV reunion, the band announced a 2015 arena tour.
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube.


A woman in India who was allegedly gang raped for the second time in three years by the same men says she wants "stringent action" against the accused.

The five men "should not roam scot-free as they are dangerous to society", she told the BBC.
Police have arrested three of the five accused.
The 21-year-old student had been pursuing a case in court against the men, when she was attacked and left for dead in Haryana state last week.
She said she was forced inside a car and the men tried to strangle her. A passerby later took her to hospital.
The woman, who is from a poor low-caste Dalit (formerly known as untouchables) family, was first assaulted in 2013 in Bhiwani town.
Her family has alleged that they had moved to Rohtak after they were threatened by the accused who have been out on bail.
Speaking to the BBC from her hospital bed, where she is recovering from her injuries, the woman said the five were the same men who had gang raped her in 2013.
"These people gang-raped me in 2013. This time too, they're the accused," she said.
"I know them very well. I only want justice. They should be hanged.  It's not just only about me or anybody else's daughter. These people are dangerous," she said.
Though she could not speak much due to health complications, her cousin said the victim's family "do not have faith" in the local police.
"It took police seven days to arrest three of the five men identified by my sister. The accused were all roaming about here. We pleaded before the police. But their bias was obvious. We are being victimised because we are from a lower caste," he told the BBC.
He said his family embraced Buddhism last year after being fed up of "caste discrimination".
The victim's family has also alleged that the accused offered them money to withdraw the 2013 gang rape case. "When we refused the money, we were threatened," he said.
The arrested men have been remanded to custody by a local court.
The state government has also announced setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the incident. The team is led by two senior police officials and includes forensic experts.
Police official Mohammed Akil said the accused have handed over some CCTV footage claiming that they were at different places when the incident took place.
"The matter is complicated and there are many aspects that have to be taken into consideration during the investigation. The SIT will do its job," Mr Akil told the BBC.
The DNA samples of the accused were being sent for examination, he said.
Family members of the arrested men, however, alleged that they were being "falsely implicated" in the case.
They accused the victim's family of "demanding money" to withdraw the case.
Garima, wife of one of the accused, said her husband Sandeep was in a different city on the day the incident was said to have taken place.
Harbans, brother of accused Jagmohan, told the BBC that they had handed over evidence to the police to prove that his brother was "several kilometres away from the place of the incident".
Police officials say that the matter has become complicated and only a thorough investigation will establish what actually happened.
Nearly four years ago, a 23-year-old woman was brutally raped by multiple men and murdered on a bus in Delhi, causing global outrage.
Tougher laws on sexual violence were introduced the year after, including a new death sentence if a person was convicted of rape a second time.
But correspondents in India say questions are being asked about how five men who were accused of a serious sexual crime could have been free to conduct another attack.


The Aberdeen family home of the so-called "Scottish Samurai" Thomas Blake Glover could be turned into a £2m research hub.

Fraserburgh-born Blake Glover arrived in Nagasaki in 1859, helped found Mitsubishi, and contributed to the modernisation of Japan.
Aberdeen City Council wants to turn Glover House into an "ideas hub".
The proposals will go before the council's finance, policy and resources committee on Tuesday.
Council leader Jenny Laing said: "Thomas Blake Glover is regarded as the founder of modern Japan and here in the north east we remain very proud of his achievements.
"By transforming his family home in the Bridge of Don area into a research and development facility for future industries and technologies, we are potentially developing ideas which will help us diversify our own economy and attract inward investment.
"It will also help us cement partnerships with Japanese companies.
"Our aim is to use the home of the Scottish Samurai as a springboard to widen our skills base and to encourage innovation as we look to the years beyond North Sea oil and gas."
Mitsubishi gifted Glover House to Grampian Regional Council in 1996.
The property is now under the control of Aberdeen City Council.


A teenager who caused the evacuation of 32 properties at a block of flats in Fort William after building a hoax bomb has had his sentence quashed.

Jack Salter, 18, posted an image of the "bomb" on Facebook.
Army ordnance experts were called and found that Salter's creation was not a viable explosive, but looked realistic to the untrained eye.
Salter was order to be detained for 16 months but appeal judges said they were was an alternative to custody.
He has now been placed under supervision on a three-year community payback order and told to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
In June, Salter, of Fort William, was ordered to be detained when he appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Lawyers acting for him challenged the imposition of the detention and judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh have overturned it.
Judge Lord Drummond Young, who heard the appeal with Lady Clark of Calton, said they were satisfied that there was an alternative to custody in his case.
Lord Drummond Young said it was clearly a serious incident, saying the experience "must have been very alarming for those in the neighbourhood".
But the appeal judges said they considered that there were special circumstances in the case where Salter had suffered "an acute grief reaction" to the death of his father.
His father had died in "very distressing circumstances" from a drugs overdose in the presence of Salter shortly before the incident.
Lord Drummond Young said it seemed that Salter's reaction to his father's death had caused a difficult period for him when he committed a number of offences.
Fred Mackintosh, counsel for Salter, told the court that the incident had been extremely disruptive and frightening but appeared to be largely out of character.
He said that following his liberation ahead of the appeal hearing he had been offered work and secured a college place.


A former Newcastle United coach has denied 35 historical sexual offences dating back as far as 1973.

George Ormond, 61, appeared via a videolink at Newcastle Crown Court, giving a clear "not guilty" plea to each of the charges which were said to relate to 18 complainants.
He faces 33 counts of indecent assault, one of gross indecency with a child and one serious sexual assault of a 15-year-old.
The charges date from 1973 to 1998.
The defendant, wearing glasses and with a grey beard, appeared via a link from Bradford.
He was granted bail and will stand trial on 21 May next year.
Mr Ormond, of no fixed address, volunteered as a coach at Newcastle United as well as other clubs in the area.
The trial is expected to last between four and five weeks.


More than 100 cannabis plants have been seized at a farm by police.

A Misuse of Drugs Act warrant was carried out for the premises in Chulmleigh, Devon, on Friday morning.
Sgt Dave MacFadden said police and neighbourhood teams had acted "directly on community intelligence".
One man is currently helping police with their enquiries and awaits interview.


Manchester's Anthony Crolla says he wants to create "a legacy" by defending his WBA lightweight title against Venezuelan Jorge Linares next month.

The 29-year-old will fight Linares, 31, at Manchester Arena on 24 September.
Crolla, who successfully retained his belt for the first time against Ismael Barroso in May, says he will need to produce a career-best performance.
"I'm fighting a great fighter and I'm fighting for one of the greatest prizes in the sport," said Crolla.
The British fighter first claimed the WBA lightweight title at the Manchester Arena last November, before retaining it against Barroso at the same venue.
"I see this as a bit of a legacy fight, " said Crolla. "When every young kid walks into a gym and they start boxing, they dream of becoming a world champion.
"I've done that now. I came into boxing to try and win a world title and pay my house off. That's done now, so I don't want people to think 'he's settled for that'.
"I'm honoured to be fighting for this and getting these big fights, but I'm hungrier than ever. I like it too much, I like the big Manchester nights way too much to let it go now."
As well as Crolla's WBA crown, Linares' WBC Diamond belt and the vacant Ring Magazine title will also be on the line.
"I'm so excited for this now, I'm counting down the weeks," said Crolla, who believes he and Linares are the "best lightweights" in the division.
"I'm in a good place, training is going fantastic. We're working on bringing something new, which we know we will have to for a fighter like Jorge."
Former WBA super-bantamweight title holder Scott Quigg:
"We're under no illusions, we know this is going to be a very tough fight for Anthony style-wise. But believe me, he'll pull it off. He's firing in the gym, things are starting to come together.
"You know it's a big fight when it's for the unified Ring Magazine belt, you don't get any easy fights for that. I have a prediction in my head. Anthony doesn't win on points, but Anthony will stop him."


Italian journalist Domenico Quirico and Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin da Prata, who were kidnapped in Syria in April, have been freed, say officials.

The men were flown to Rome, where they were met by Italy's foreign minister.
Mr Quirico, 62, a reporter for the Turin-based daily La Stampa, entered Syria from Lebanon on 6 April saying he would be out of touch for a week.
The men were reportedly together when they were taken - it is not clear who was responsible for kidnapping.
Mr Quirico had spoken by phone to his wife in June confirming he had been kidnapped but said he was in good health.
In a message on Twitter, Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo said he shared the emotion and relief of the men's families.
Italy's Prime Minister Enrico Letta welcomed the news. "Our hope was never extinguished," he said.
Foreign Minister Emma Bonino met the men as they arrived at the Francesco Baracca military airport in Ciampino, south-west of Rome.
She said earlier she was "filled with joy and satisfaction" at their release.
"My thoughts are with Mr Quirico's relatives who will be able to greet him again after many months," said Ms Bonino.
"My thanks go to those who played a part in the successful outcome... the Foreign Ministry and other state agencies who together pursued every channel to solve this case. It was particularly difficult in such a complicated environment as Syria.
"This is great news for all media workers who risk their lives in war to tell the truth in extreme situations."
Mr Quirico was also among four journalists who were held captive briefly in Libya in 2011.
The conflict in Syria has made it one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work in.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria was the most deadly country for reporters in 2012.


If you run into problems trying to remember a password on your mobile or computer when trying to buy something, then things could be about to get easier.

The days of the lowly password are numbered.
The fact is that the way we users typically deal with having multiple passwords for our online accounts makes us too vulnerable to spyware, phishing and identity theft.
Many of us rely on the same password, while many more of us only use three or four passwords.
Ideally, the best password would be something like Az1f6&jWz - but you'd never remember it.
So the industry is looking to ditch passwords, and is turning to a variety of solutions, such as voice recognition, key stroke analysis and finger print identification.
Payments firm PayPal is one of those leading the changes, and president David Marcus says the aim is to make the whole process seamless.
"Like magic, you'll be authenticated, and the payment will go through," he tells BBC World Service's Business Daily.
"We want to move away from passwords, and get to embedded fingerprint scanners on mobile phones.
"You're going to start seeing that type of experience later this year, with a mass roll-out in the year to come."
Earlier this month, PayPal, Lenovo and others announced the formation of the Fido Alliance (Fast Identity Online) to change the way online security checks are carried out.
The idea is that users will be able to select the type of authentication that suits them best - from fingerprint scanning to USB tokens.
"The best protection is the one you don't see - it's the one that happens in the background, that verifies your identity accessing your own data," says Mr Marcus.
For PayPal, solving the password security problem is important because so many people now use it to make purchases - it has 125 million customers in more than 190 countries.
More from Business Daily on BBC World Service
Browse the Business Daily podcast archive
Follow BBC Business on Twitter
...and on Facebook
"You shop offline more than you shop online, but in most of these transactions mobile is involved now," says Mr Marcus.
"As the offline market is 17 times bigger than the online market, there is still huge untapped potential for us."
Since taking over as chief executive last April, he says PayPal has been changing the way it develops services for customers.
"Every large company gets slower after a while, and you need to reinvigorate the troops and invent products that are truly disruptive."
The key driver for this has been the way in which customers are increasingly using phones, tablets and other handheld devices to make purchases.
Last year, PayPal recorded $145bn (Â£95bn) in total transactions, of which $14bn were via mobile devices, says Mr Marcus.
"But the year before it was sub-$4bn."
Of course, PayPal is not the only company working on solutions that don't require users racking their brains to remember passwords.
In Sweden, behavioural biometrics firm BehavioSec has developed a system, which is already in use in Swedish banks, that focuses on how we behave on our computer or mobile.
"We can capture the rhythm of how users type - the speed between the keystrokes," says chief executive Neil Costigan.
In collaboration with phone manufacturer Samsung, the firm has also developed a smartphone app which learns and then recognizes the way a phone user enters his or her PIN.
Even if someone else who knows your PIN tries to use your phone, they will not be allowed access, as they would also need to mimic your behaviour to fractions of a second, says BehavioSec.
"It is no longer sufficient to enter the correct password or PIN code, it has to be entered the correct way," says Mr Costigan.
Meanwhile, US speech technology company Nuance has developed voice recognition software that is already in use with Barclays Bank in the UK and USAA Bank in the United States.
Nuance's "Nina" app allows companies to add a speech-enabled virtual personal assistant function to their existing smartphone apps.
"USAA Bank has been trialling the technology with a select group of customers, and is now launching the technology globally with a release in 38 languages," says Nuance.
"It is set to be adopted by banks, utilities and telecoms firms worldwide."
A customer can open the app and say "pay my mobile phone bill", and Nina will verify their identity through the sound of their voice and pay the bill, it adds.
Nuance insists that there is no way fraudsters will be able to circumvent this.
All of which should be welcome news for those of us who continually have to email our online retailers for new passwords, because we've forgotten the one we asked them for the last time we tried to buy something from them.
Justin Rowlatt's interview with David Marcus, president of PayPal, was broadcast on Business Daily, BBC World Service, at 08.32 GMT, 1 March 2013


"China gets tough on media freedom" isn't much of a shock headline these days.

But events at Yanhuang Chunqiu - a distinguished, if somewhat dry, history magazine - are evidence of a watershed moment, its former staff believe.
"I've not seen this kind of thing since the Cultural Revolution," the recently dismissed - some might say purged - founder and director Du Daozheng tells me.
In July, the magazine's offices were taken over by strangers, who changed the computer passwords, began to open the mail as if it was their own and took over the running of the magazine.
"It was a co-ordinated effort to block us and to contain and control us," Mr Du says.
At 93 years old, he does not look like your usual target of Chinese government oppression.
Granted, his magazine - whose title loosely translates as China Through the Ages - has long been offering a mild critique of the official Communist version of history.
But it is hardly a radical voice of opposition. Mr Du himself has been a card-carrying member of the Party for almost eight decades and was, for a long time, a senior editor at Xinhua, the state-run news agency.
"All other newspapers only speak with the same voice," he says.
"We offered something different, but we were still a force within the system, using our voice to advocate moderate reform."
There have been attempts to clip the magazine's wings in the past.
In 2008 it broke a longstanding taboo by publishing a series of articles about Zhao Ziyang, the former party leader ousted in 1989 who spent the rest of his days under house arrest.
And one of the magazine's senior editors, Hu Dehua, is himself the son of another reform-minded former leader, Hu Yaobang.
But the magazine has managed to stay in business, partly because of the backing of influential sympathisers. In recent years it boasted a readership of some 200,000 a month.
Another series of articles, published in 2013, ruffled feathers by questioning the details of a well-known story about Communist soldiers fighting against the Japanese in World War Two.
The heroic tale has the five Chinese soldiers jumping off a cliff so they would not be captured alive, but the article expressed doubts about key aspects, including how many Japanese soldiers were supposed to have been killed in the preceding battle.
"There have been many times when they want to say that we cannot have a different opinion," Mr Du tells me.
"But this time it's serious. They really do want to shut us down."
So, he says, in the face of the appointment of new editorial staff by the authorities, the original staff had no choice but to issue a notice announcing that any future editions of the magazine would have nothing to do with them.
But they are not giving up.
This week they went to court to try to challenge what they see as an illegal attempt to stifle their voice, although few observers would give them much chance of success.
The plight of Yanhuang Chunqiu is seen as symbolic of the tightening of control over freedom of expression under President Xi Jinping.
Lawyers, activists and religious groups are all feeling the pressure as his government moves against what it sees as the dangers of pluralist, Western ideals.
But that a history magazine should be in the firing line has shocked many observers.
The past has always been a sensitive subject in China but Yanhuang Chunqiu was at least one place where China's often dark and difficult history could be openly discussed as a way of illuminating the future.
Even that opportunity has now gone.
"I had high expectations for Xi Jinping," Mr Du says.
"But in general I think he is going backwards. The consequences of this clampdown is not only about our magazine but it will harm the party and the country."


How comfortable would you feel getting on a pilotless plane?

That is the question millions of people may have to ask themselves in the future if they want to jet off on holiday around the world.
As we move closer to a world of driverless cars, which have already been on the road in some US cities and have also been tested in London, remotely controlled planes may be the next automated mode of transport.
Plane manufacturer Boeing plans to test them in 2018.
A survey by financial services firm UBS suggests that pilotless aircraft not be too popular, however, with 54% of the 8,000 people questioned saying they would be unlikely to take a pilotless flight. The older age groups were the most resistant with more than half of people aged 45 and above shunning the idea.
Only 17% of those questioned said they would board such a plane, with more young people willing to give them a try and the 25 to 34 age group the most likely to step on board.
One of the biggest debating points around the introduction of the planes is safety.
While flying is generally regarded as one of the safest forms of travel, the UBS report suggested that pilotless planes would make it even more secure.
It found that around 70% to 80% of the accidents that do occur are the result of human error, with crew fatigue responsible for 15% to 20% of those.
However, Steve Landells, the British Airline Pilots Association's (Balpa) flight safety specialist, said: "We have concerns that in the excitement of this futuristic idea, some may be forgetting the reality of pilotless air travel.
"Automation in the cockpit is not a new thing - it already supports operations. However, every single day pilots have to intervene when the automatics don't do what they're supposed to.
"Computers can fail, and often do, and someone is still going to be needed to work that computer."
It is also clear that if pilotless planes were to become the norm, then military levels of security both inside the plane and in communications would be vital.
Acceptance of the concept would also be crucial to its success.
Jarrod Castle, UBS's head of business services, leisure and travel research, told the BBC: "It is a question of public perception and people being comfortable with the idea.
"Clearly a seven-hour flight carrying 200 to 300 people would be the last part of the evolution but we also feel that machines can gradually take over and then reduce the number of pilots in the cockpit from two to one over time."
Céline Fornaro of UBS added: "The smaller the plane and amount of passengers, the more realistic it is to see this.
"It is not just our view, companies like Airbus are trying to get into this world where you could have small helicopters carrying two or three people unmanned."
Air transport consultant John Strickland believes pilotless planes could definitely become a reality, as long as certain hurdles are overcome.
"It is conceivable but would be some way off in the future," he told the BBC. "There would have to be an overall focus on safety and there would be a psychological barrier to get over to win the public's trust.
"We step on monorails at airports and travel in some driverless trains and cars, but the whole psychology of being in the air and not having humans at the front is quite a challenge."
UBS says airlines could save more than $26bn (£20bn) in pilot costs by introducing pilotless aircraft and added that such a move would save the business jet industry up to $3bn and civil helicopters about $2.1bn.
More than $3bn would also be saved in lower insurance premiums and there would be chances of extra revenue from increased numbers of cargo and commercial flights.


"We always had the belief of a turnaround," said cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar after Mumbai Indians won the Indian Premier League (IPL) title on Sunday night.

The team's mentor was euphoric after his side defeated Chennai Super Kings to lift the IPL trophy for a second time.
Lendl Simmons struck 68 off 45 balls in the final in Kolkata (Calcutta) and captain Rohit Sharma added 50 off 26 as Mumbai posted 202-5.
Dwayne Smith's 57 was in vain for MS Dhoni's Chennai, who were restricted to 161-8 in their 20 overs.
Mumbai Indians were docile in the beginning of the tournament and not many considered them as one of the frontrunners for the title.
They lost five out of their first six games, showing the wide gulf between them and table-topper teams like Chennai.
So what sparked this "remarkable turnaround"? The answer lies in Tendulkar's comment.
"We stepped together, worked hard, executed our plans. It was about how we stayed together during tough times," said Tendulkar.
The team improved, both in bowling and batting departments, with every match and never stopped believing in its abilities.
They went on to win 9 out of their remaining 10 matches.
As an article on the Mint website points out, the Mumbai Indians' "story this time around has been that of a transformation from virtual no-hopers to title winners".
The team won its first game of the tournament against Royal Challengers Bangalore on 19 April.
It was a special match for the team because they appeared like a unit and backed each other.
Veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh showed some signs of his glorious past with his three wickets and Sri Lankan star Lasith Malinga found a steady partner in Mitchell McClenaghan.
The pace duo, along with Singh, gave the much-needed boost to the Mumbai Indians' bowling department in the remaining matches.
Writing on the First Post website, Tariq Engineer praises Malinga for shedding his "early season rustiness" and doing justice to his reputation as "one of the best limited-overs bowlers".
"In Mitchell McClenaghan, he had a wicket-taking partner with the new ball. And Harbhajan Singh demonstrated he still has the guile and tactical nous to wrinkle batsmen out," Engineer sums up the story of Mumbai's  "bowling comeback".
Batting was another matter.
Captain Sharma led from the front and showed resilience in the remaining matches.
Kieron Pollard, Unmukt Chand, Hardik Pandya and Simmons played well as a unit and performed individually whenever their team needed some firepower.
But it was the opening pair of Simmons and wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel that made the difference.
After failing to find the right combination in the first few matches, the team management decided to go with Patel and Simmons.
And it paid dividends because the opening pair ensured that Mumbai batted deep to overhaul big totals.
As one analyst said, Mumbai's victory shows "that a fast start is often just that...  and what matters in the IPL is how you finish".
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.


The King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, has called on Moroccans living abroad, many of them in Europe, to defend a tolerant form of Islam and reject extremism.

It was his first address to the five million Moroccans in the diaspora since the recent attacks in Europe by Islamist militants.
European citizens of Moroccan origin were implicated in some attacks.
Condemning the murder of innocent people, the king singled out the killing of a priest in France.
Two followers of so-called Islamic State (IS) slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, 84, during Mass at his church in a suburb of Rouen.
"Killing a priest is forbidden by religion," King Mohammed said in his speech on Saturday evening.
"Murdering him inside a church is unforgivable madness, for he is a human being and a religious man - even if he is not a Muslim."
Two of the IS militants killed in the aftermath of the Paris attacks in November were Belgians of Moroccan origin, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader, and Chakib Akrouh, a suicide bomber.
The three IS militants who bombed Brussels in March, Khalid and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, were also of Moroccan origin.
The king said that those who engaged in terrorism, in the name of Islam, were "not Muslims".
"Their only link to Islam is the pretexts they use to justify their crimes and their folly," he said. "They have strayed from the right path, and their fate is to dwell forever in hell."
Extremists, the Moroccan monarch said, were exploiting young Muslims to spread misleading messages about Islam and distort its peaceful values.
"They think - out of ignorance - that they are engaging in jihad," he said.
"Since when has jihad been synonymous with killing innocent people? The Almighty says: 'Do not transgress limits, for Allah loves not transgressors.'
"Is it conceivable that God... could order someone to blow himself up or kill innocent people? Islam, as a matter of fact, does not permit any kind of suicide - whatever the reasons or circumstances."
Under Mohammed VI, the Moroccan monarchy has taken on a more modern, reformist image.