Readers praise – and point to omissions from – the former home secretary’s proposed programme for government Well said, David Blunkett (You’ve heard the king’s speech – but I think a better one might run like this, 14 May). A touch of radicalism. A narrative. A purpose. Clarity. Pretty much everything that the current government has failed to offer. I especially applaud his call for lifelong learning and citizenship education. There are omissions from his list, though, notably a constitutional reform package, at the heart of which should be proportional representation. His lifelong learning package would link to that. Continue reading...

Iain Ramsay draws attention to the enhancing financial services bill and the influence of finance industry lobbying in proposed reforms that could be affect consumers Press reports on the king’s speech, including in the Guardian (The king’s speech: what is the government’s legislative agenda for the next 12 months?, 13 May), gave little coverage to the proposed enhancing financial services bill, a central part of which will downgrade the role of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Cloaked in the guise of “modernisation”, the proposals reflect pure interest-group lobbying by the finance industry, which already exercises substantial influence on policy. Given that the costs of consumer redress may be concentrated in a few large firms, they have a strong incentive to participate in the policy process. In contrast, consumers of financial products have diffuse concerns and more limited expertise, and face high organisational costs. Continue reading...

US comedian has a remarkable ability to transform amusing, if somewhat banal, anecdotes into meticulously crafted joy and preposterousness In terms of both quality and quantity, Josh Johnson is producing standup at a more prolific rate than any other comedian on the globe. How often would you expect a professional comedian to release an hour-long filmed and edited set consisting of 100% brand new gear? Once a year? Every two years? For Johnson, it’s every week. Every Tuesday since 2023, the American comic and rotating host-correspondent of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has uploaded fully fledged, highly topical routines to his YouTube channel. Filmed from his own tours and club drop-ins, many have eclipsed the 5m view mark. To call him a disruptor of the conventional comedy career path would be a heavy understatement; Johnson is playing by his own rules and the comedy cognoscenti around the world are undoubtedly watching with a keen eye. Continue reading...

Liz McInnes says her fears about the move back in 2019 are coming true as towns such as Middleton will lose access to postal services with TG Jones closing In 2019, I warned the Conservative government of the danger of moving post offices into branches of WH Smith (Fears of ‘postal deserts’ as owner of former WH Smith stores puts counters under threat, 15 May). The post office in Middleton, Greater Manchester, was about to be relocated in this manner and I, and many of my then constituents, questioned the sustainability of moving such a vital service into a failing business. Continue reading...

Paula Briggs says creative experiences help children feel connected, empowered and engaged, while Nicky Goulder calls for more equal access to creative opportunities across society The reported health benefits of engaging with art, discussed in your editorial (The Guardian view on public health and the arts: the all-singing, all-dancing science of ageing, 12 May) should come as no surprise to anyone working with children and young people. The government needs to get serious about wellbeing, school attendance and children’s health, and be much braver in joining up policy across education, culture and health. At AccessArt, the UK charity I founded nearly 30 years ago to support visual arts teaching and learning, we hear repeatedly from teachers that creative experiences help children feel connected, empowered and engaged. Yet the arts have been undervalued in many schools for years, resulting in pressure to narrow the curriculum and prioritise measurable outcomes over meaningful engagement. Continue reading...

Demand for ‘formal sale’ is odd for slew of reasons including five-year plan analysts say is ‘sensible, credible and material’ The big strategy reset a fortnight ago from Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn, got a ho-hum response from the stock market for understandable reasons. The company said shutting Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants, or converting the space to hotel rooms, would involve up-front costs. Most of the goodies in the five-year plan, unveiled only two years after the last one, are intended to come towards the end of the period, which makes them less certain in the eyes of the market. The big prize, according to Whitbread’s chief executive, Dominic Paul, would be an improvement in annual returns on capital from a pedestrian 11% to a decent 16%. But shareholders, already digesting a whack from Rachel Reeves’s changes to business rates, would have to wait awhile for the “higher-margin, higher-returning pure-play hotel business” to appear. Continue reading...

The ‘Tank Day’ event has been described as ‘malicious mockery’ of a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters The chief executive of Starbucks in South Korea has been fired after the company ran a promotional event using slogans that evoked a massacre of pro-democracy protesters during the country’s dictatorship era, sparking outrage and boycott calls. The coffee chain launched a “Tank Day” campaign on 18 May for its “Tank” tumbler series. The date coincides with one of the most politically sensitive days in South Korea’s calendar, when citizens commemorate the 1980 democratisation movement in Gwangju, 167 miles (270km) south-west of Seoul. Continue reading...

Ofcom to update codes of practice amid rise in ‘revenge porn’ and AI-generated deepfakes targeting women and girls Social media, messaging platforms and online forums that publish intimate image abuse – often intended to humiliate women and girls – are being instructed to follow new guidelines to stop it spreading. Ofcom said it would change its codes of practice to force service providers to detect and quash intimate image abuse – sometimes called “revenge porn” – and crack down on AI-generated deepfakes. A wave of deepfakes emerged in January when Elon Musk’s Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis. Continue reading...

The Brexit debate has been reignited after Labour leadership contender Wes Streeting called it a ‘catastrophic mistake’ and said the UK should rejoin the European Union. His comments put pressure on rival Andy Burnham, who has previously advocated for rejoining the bloc but is fighting a byelection in the leave-voting Makerfield constituency. But how would rejoining work and would the EU even agree to it? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley Continue reading...

Andy Burnham may already be facing a tricky obstacle in his push to return to Westminster. Past comments about rejoining the EU have come back to haunt him, particularly given that the Makerfield constituency voted overwhelmingly to leave in the Brexit referendum. Plus, Wes Streeting has confirmed he will stand in any leadership contest, raising fresh questions about where all this leaves Keir Starmer Continue reading...

The only useful purpose Keir can play in helping Andy Burnham get elected is to be the focus of everything that voters dislike about Labour On days like this you have to ask yourself one question: is it me who is going mad? Or has our politics just taken yet another turn through the looking-glass? How can we be sure that anything is real when all the old certainties are shattered? Picture the scene. After a weekend down in Chequers sticking pins into his Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham dolls, Keir Starmer re-emerged in Labour HQ to give one of his trademark demotivational speeches to the staff. And towards the end, he promised to offer his 100% support to the Labour candidate in the Makerfield byelection. To do whatever was necessary to beat Reform. Continue reading...

The Brexit debate has been reignited after Labour leadership contender Wes Streeting called it a ‘catastrophic mistake’ and said the UK should rejoin the European Union. His comments put pressure on rival Andy Burnham, who has previously advocated for rejoining the bloc but is fighting a byelection in the leave-voting Makerfield constituency. But how would rejoining work and would the EU even agree to it? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley Continue reading...

Unheralded coach has presided over a remarkable turnaround as club navigates La Liga’s epic relegation battle Luís Castro was 11 when he started vomiting blood. Taken to hospital and diagnosed with purpura, initially doctors told his parents there was no chance of him living and even when he was cured they said he couldn’t do any physical exercise ever again. But three lonely years later, driven by an inner strength he ascribed to a higher power, he was back on a football pitch, building a career that took him through the lower leagues in Portugal as a player and around the world as coach, winning trophies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Brazil, until one day in December his name landed on the president’s desk at Levante: just the kind of man the Spanish club needed in their impossible fight for survival. Oh, wait. No, that’s not right. “I had heard of another Luís Castro but not this one,” Pablo Sánchez admitted on Sunday night, “and this one turned out to be the ideal coach for our club.” Continue reading...

Transport secretary to give budget details of troubled high-speed line, which backers hope will stay well below £100bn The latest estimate of the cost of HS2 and a timetable to complete construction of the high-speed railway will be set out by the government on Tuesday, including plans to run trains slower to trim costs. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, is expected to give the first official reckoning of the troubled project’s budget in 2026 prices, which HS2’s backers hope will remain substantially below £100bn. Continue reading...

Charity says absence of new name polyendocrine metabolic syndrome (PMOS) could cause confusion The NHS must move quickly to update patient information after the renaming of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as polyendocrine metabolic syndrome (PMOS), a grassroots charity has said. Last week, the condition – which is thought to affect about 1 in 8 women – was given a new name after a 14-year effort that brought together medical experts, charities and women with lived experience of the disorder. Continue reading...

Cannes film festival: A man is terrified to wake up in Seydoux’s body in this metempsychotic mystery film about gender identity Arthur Harari’s film is adapted from a graphic novel he wrote with his brother Lucas called The Case of David Zimmerman. It is a doomy, murky and intriguing supernatural noir mystery, hardly visible within the dark toxic cloud of its own strangeness, populated by people bearing stricken expressions of misery and fear. There are some genuinely uncanny and disquieting moments. Maybe it is a parable for the crisis of gender identity – or just identity, and everyone’s occasional experience of the profound, unreconcilable unknowability of our own bodies. There is also something of the mood of Blow-Up, or Basil Dearden’s Brit pulp chiller The Man Who Haunted Himself, or indeed David Robert Mitchell’s modern classic It Follows. But this one, sadly, is flawed by that perennial problem of how to end a story with a great premise. Niels Schneider plays David Zimmerman, a photographer in his late 30s documenting the way in which his home town has changed over the past century – a project inherited from his photographer dad. (He has an old photo of them both seated on the pavement, apparently mimicking Chaplin and the Kid.) David is overworked, dishevelled and depressed, but is just about persuaded to go along to a raucous New Year’s Eve party where he is stunned to glimpse a woman staring at him, played by Léa Seydoux, whom he realises he photographed a few months’ previously. Continue reading...

Forward was dropped after a previous attempt to undermine coach, but doing so now could spark mutiny We can safely say how Arne Slot would like to respond to Mohamed Salah’s latest attempt to undermine him. The Champions League trip to Inter in December, when Salah was left at home as punishment for his incendiary interview at Leeds three days earlier, provides as clear an indication as any. But should a repeat offence result in a repeat sanction on Sunday? Liverpool and their besieged head coach could do without inflaming a potential mutiny at Anfield. Salah decided to draw up battle lines before his departure, with Saturday’s social media post criticising Liverpool’s direction under Slot. His concerns are widely shared by the Liverpool fanbase and the Liverpool squad, it seems, given the support it received from Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai, Andy Robertson and several members of last summer’s underwhelming recruitment drive. Arrive at great expense, fail to deliver and fuel the sense that a toxic civil war is erupting behind the scenes: thanks for your efforts lads. It is impossible to say what prompted each individual like but that is the impression the collective has given. Continue reading...

Makerfield will be a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform – so prepare yourself for regrets, broken promises and baffling assertions about ‘red wall’ voters It is a gruesome shock and yet was entirely predictable: we stand on the brink of a byelection that is three things at once. First, a straight popularity contest for Andy Burnham, which itself is a worry, because there must be a limit to how many times you can be called “King of the North” without it boiling your brain, and if that limit exists at all, it must surely have been reached. Second, it’s a limbering-up round for the coming Labour leadership challenge. Third, and most importantly, Makerfield is a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform when it matters. So what could be more helpful than for everyone involved – every cabinet minister, every backbencher, every commentator – to reach back into their memory and find the stupidest thing that was ever said about Brexit, and say it again in a more excitable voice. Get ready for Brexit-argument bingo; if you think you’ve heard them all before, that’s why it’s so fun. Keir Starmer jumped first, even before the byelection was on the cards. After announcing a plan to nationalise steel – an industry that is already under government control – he made some huge admissions about Brexit, followed by some even larger promises. He said it had made us poorer, it had sent migration through the roof and it had made us less secure. It wasn’t what you’d call hold-the-front-page, since it’s common knowledge that Brexit has made us poorer; but it’s extremely surprising, of course, to hear the prime minister make a straightforward statement on the EU which relates to reality, rather than a convoluted set of red lines, related to an alternative universe in which Europe is begging to take us back, but we’re holding firm. Continue reading...

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Chancellor has been under pressure to extend 5p temporary cut at an estimated cost to government of £2.4bn a year UK politics live – latest updates Rachel Reeves is planning to cancel a rise in fuel duty this week when she unveils a package of measures to reduce the cost of living. The chancellor will announce she will not put up the tax by 1p as was due to happen in September, government sources said, and she could cancel all of a 5p rise that is due to happen in stages over the subsequent six months. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! An occasionally contrary but invariably entertaining studio regular on Jim White’s TalkSport show before and between stints at Celtic this season, Martin O’Neill made himself available this morning to discuss his side’s dramatic weekend title heist. It’s not often a game of fitba completely overshadows the FA Cup final but Saturday’s denouement at Celtic Park was the rare exception. O’Neill could scarcely have been more complimentary about his players, his staff and the unprecedented levels of global interest generated in the Scottish Premiership by a completely unexpected Hearts title challenge that came up agonisingly short. For 12 minutes O’Neill traded good-natured barbs with White and Sidekick Simon Jordan while joking about “the two Japanese lads” in the dressing-room openly wondering “who is this old man?” on his first day in interim charge. It was only when the trumpeting of the giant elephant in the studio klaxon reached an ear-splitting crescendo that White asked his special guest about the pitch invasion that greeted Celtic’s third goal and whether it suggested “a lack of class” on Celtic’s part. Gone. Get rid. I’ll tell you why. It’s killing spontaneity in the ground. I’m a season ticket holder at Everton. Killing spontaneity. You can’t celebrate a goal because you think someone somewhere in an industrial unit is going to rule it out. So that’s a bad thing. But No 2, it doesn’t get decisions right. You could put up with it if it then got decisions right, but it doesn’t get the decisions right and it’s not consistent” – Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor reportedly building a potential bid to become the new prime minister, is asked on the burning issue of the day: the war in Iran, the cost-of-living crisis VAR! I think Michael Lloyd might be on to something with his suggestion for crowd entertainment during VAR reviews (Friday’s letters). Stadium announcers could play songs that match the (alleged) infraction under consideration - maybe Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line’ for offside reviews, Timbaland’s ‘Hands in the Air’ for when the ball has been leathered against an outstretched digit from incredibly close quarters, or Justin Bieber’s ‘Hold Me’ for set-piece grappling (if it’s one of those scenarios that has to be replayed 17 times, then some or all alternative tracks with the same title by Wilson Phillips, Santana, Alabama Shakes or Tom Waits could also be played). Finally, for dubious decisions made in added time, in games that have a direct impact on the destination of a league title, there is only one possible track: Prince’s ‘Controversy’” – Paul Taverner. Can I be one of 1,057 others to suggest that Andy Burnham would be better to sport an Everton shirt sponsored by NEC if he wanted to curry favour with the Labour Party hierarchy” – Chris Richardson (and no others). This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...

Last Week Tonight host spoke about structured settlements and the problematic industry surrounding them John Oliver took aim at factoring companies on his HBO show and the industry that takes advantage of people with structured settlements. On Last Week Tonight, he explained that the story grew out of “the JG fucking Wentworth ads” which have been a “pop culture staple” due to the “infuriatingly catchy” jingle that was even part of a Curb Your Enthusiasm storyline. Continue reading...

For the first time ever, beer has overtaken wine as the drink of choice in France. Bad news for national identity, but potentially good news in terms of alcohol consumption Name: French beer Age: About 11,700 years. Continue reading...

Learning to drive as an adult is humiliating because everyone knows how to drive, and frustrating because no one knows how to drive properly Last year, at the age of 35, I decided it was time to grow up and get my driver’s licence. I had considered it before, but it had never stuck. As a teenager, I thought driving was scary and significantly less cool than sitting on the bus, listening to the same eight songs on my MP3 player. As a news reporter in my 20s, not driving was inconvenient to both me and my editors, but so was spending days off learning how to parallel park. Continue reading...

Étienne Davignon, 93, was last living person targeted in investigation into assassination of DRC’s first PM, Patrice Lumumba A 93-year-old Belgian former diplomat who in March year became the first person to be charged in the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba has died before he could stand trial. The death of Étienne Davignon, an aristocrat who served as a European commissioner during a decades-long career as one of Belgium’s leading diplomats and industrialists, was confirmed by the Jacques Delors Institute thinktank, where he had served on the board. Continue reading...