The broad-brush, emotive telling of the questions around the neonatal nurse’s conviction uses arrest footage that her parents have said ‘would likely kill us’ if they watched. Did her mother’s howl of distress need to be broadcast? The Investigation of Lucy Letby is at least the fifth documentary that has been produced in the wake of the neonatal nurse’s convictions in 2023 and 2024 on seven counts of murder and seven of attempted murder of babies in her care at the Countess of Chester hospital. Probably the best of them was ITV’s Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? last summer. It did a fine job of meticulously explaining the evidence against her – and why a growing body of experts believe that at the very least her conviction on the basis of what was gathered is unsafe, and at most that none of the babies were murdered by her, but were victims of a chronically understaffed and mismanaged unit that might have sought to scapegoat an individual for its failings. The Investigation of Lucy Letby does not compare in its attention to detail, preferring a broader-brush, more emotive telling of the story of either one of the most prolific female serial killers in history or one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent times. Its publicity has made much of the fact that it contains hitherto unseen footage of Letby’s arrest at her parents’ home. Her mother and father say they were unaware that it would be shown until Lucy’s barrister told them. “We will not watch it – it would likely kill us if we did.” When the footage is shown, you can hear her mother howl in distress as the police take Lucy away. It is an almost inhuman sound. It is hard to say what value such an inclusion adds except to warn the viewer to brace themselves for sensationalism along the way as the case is pieced together using accounts from the police, people – from both sides – directly involved with the case, Letby’s best friend Maisie and Letby’s current lawyer (not the one who represented her in court), Mark McDonald, along with media reporting from the time and tapes of her interviews with investigators. The Investigation of Lucy Letby is on Netflix now Continue reading...

England are bullish, France are in flux, while Wales will be hoping just to beat Italy and avoid the wooden spoon Fixtures: 7 Feb, Wales (h); 14 Feb, Scotland (a); 21 Feb, Ireland (h); 7 Mar, Italy (a); 14 Mar, France (a) Last year’s finish: 2nd Continue reading...

Plus: footballers’ weddings on live television, the most successful fictional teams, and more Mail us with your questions and answers “Ian Muir played 95% of his games for Tranmere,” writes Robert Abushal. “One-club players aside, who’s the closest to 100% without being 100%?” One-club men and women are among football’s more celebrated groups, the players who dedicated their entire career to one particular cause. Athletic Club give out the One Club Man and One Club Woman awards each year; the list of recipients include Paolo Maldini, Matthew Le Tissier and Malin Moström. We haven’t included non-league teams, which rules out Paul Scholes (three games for Royton) and Le Tissier (Eastleigh) among others. We’ve also excluded Hamburg legend Uwe Seeler, whose one appearance for Cork Celtic was in a sponsored event. Data on appearances for individual players can vary from source to source, particularly for older players. We made a judgment call in each case, so the figures may only be 99.82% correct. But that’s appropriate for this question, right? Right? Continue reading...

What to look out for as the action gets under way in Italy despite the Games not yet beginning until Friday In my opening briefing last week, I wrote that organisers were banking on the cultural pull of Italy – its architecture, food, history and fashion – to cut through any political noise surrounding the Milano Cortina Games. So far, that has not been the case. And the Olympics have not yet officially begun. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Milan’s Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the day Italy was liberated from Nazi fascism in 1945, to protest against the planned deployment of ICE agents during the Games. The ICE agents to be deployed to Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minneapolis and other US cities. Continue reading...

Starmer could improve our unfair electoral system to stop the hard right, but he won’t. All the party has left are threats about ‘splitting the vote’ Don’t let the Labour party say one more word about “splitting the vote”, in the forthcoming byelection or at any other time. With proportional representation, no one would ever need to worry about splitting the vote again. No one would need to choose the lesser evil to keep the greater evil out of office. We could vote for the parties we actually wanted. But the Labour government won’t hear of it. It insists we retain the unfair, ridiculous first-past-the-post system, then blames us for the likely results. This is not because proportional representation is unpopular – far from it. Last year’s British Social Attitudes survey showed that 36% of people want to keep the electoral system as it is, while 60% want to change it. But as we are not allowed to vote on how we should vote, the decision is left in the hands of the corrupt old system’s beneficiaries. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Formal approval given for new university group to operate from August, with both institutions keeping their names The universities of Greenwich and Kent have confirmed they have been given formal approval to merge into the UK’s first “super-university”. The merged entity will be the third-largest higher education institution in the UK, the universities said, and is consulting on being named the London and South East University Group. Continue reading...

The Spurs captain is driven by an internal fire and is unafraid of dropping truth bombs on the club’s ownership Cristian Romero had been named as the Tottenham captain, a symbol of a new era, of fresh direction and hope. It was last September, the eve of the club’s Champions League return against Villarreal and it was time for him to speak to the English media. A rare appointment but one that could not be sidestepped given his rise in status. There had to be a few nerves at Spurs because Romero was not exactly the diplomat over the course of the previous season, dropping his truth bombs, the shrapnel flying at the board and ownership, in particular. It would be a bit awkward in parts but Romero got through it. There were no unwanted headlines. Continue reading...

Despite being illegal, child marriage is still common in much of India. Saumya Khandelwal, a photojournalist, followed one girl’s tragic story In 2013, I came across a pamphlet from an organisation working on child marriage in the north-eastern India-Nepal border region of Shravasti. Statistics showed that 25% of girls in Shravasti, in Uttar Pradesh, were married by the time they reached 19. The figures were appalling, not only because of how rampant child marriage was in the region, but also because the practice is illegal in India. I decided to visit Shravasti, which is less than 90 miles from my home town. My first impression was that in a place with high rates of migration among men, young women lived with their in-laws and managed their households while their children cried and played in their arms. After that first visit it became a stop for me every time I went home. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. A selloff in software and data company stocks that began in Europe yesterday has spread to Asia-Pacific markets, via the US, today. The relief that came with the easing selloff across the metals space lasted until news broke that Anthropic, an AI startup backed by Amazon and Google, had rolled out a new AI tool designed to handle legal and research work traditionally done using paid databases. The announcement spooked markets, triggering a sharp selloff in software companies that sell data analytics and decision-making tools to lawyers, banks and corporates, on fears that AI and new players are coming for their lunch — and at an accelerated pace. 9am GMT: Eurozone services PMI report for January 9.30am GMT: UK services PMI report for January 10am GMT: Eurozone inflation report for January 10am GMT: House of Lords inquiry on stablecoins in the UK to hear evidence 1.15pm GMT: ADP US private payroll report for January 3pm GMT: US services PMI report for January Continue reading...

Making light of one of the darkest horrors of the 20th century is a risky business – but a new generation is taking ownership of family histories by making space for human foibles, says an award-winning graphic novelist My beloved German-Jewish grandmother Gisela was not an affable person. She enjoyed laughing at her own jokes, revelling in the misfortunes of others, and telling people off. If an event combined opportunities for all three activities, so much the better. When my father was six, he refused to eat the meatloaf that his mother had given him for lunch. Gisela took the piece of meatloaf, now rapidly turning rancid in the Zimbabwe afternoon heat, and served it to him for dinner, and breakfast, and every subsequent meal until he forced himself to eat it. It was the late 1950s – tyrannical parenting was de rigueur, and uneaten meatloaf was the hill that Gisela was willing to die on. Continue reading...

With 1.8m fixed-rate deals due to end this year, now’s the time to dig out the details and look at what’s on offer About 1.8m fixed-rate mortgage deals are due to end in 2026, and most of these borrowers will need to get a new home loan. If that includes you, but you are not sure when your deal expires, dig out the details. Continue reading...

Richard Rush’s cult 1980 comedy-drama turns film-making into a battlefield, with O’Toole’s imperious director blurring art, war and cruelty in a performance of lasting menace Richard Rush’s 1980 comedy was always one of the most distinctive items in Peter O’Toole’s filmography, a witty performance as an autocratic movie director that earned him one of his many (unconverted) Oscar nominations. After 46 years, The Stunt Man looks in some ways like a B-side to Lawrence of Arabia, about a possibly, definitely crazy person whose innate gift for leadership is going to endanger the troops much more than himself. It’s a high-concept satire of … what, exactly? Of the movie business with all its hubris and conceit? Yes, it’s perhaps also an anti-war satire – although it’s more a satire of cinema’s inability to be anti-war when the movies have a vested interest in making war look exciting. But the black comedy and the raucousness are interleaved with weird, fierce stabs of extended seriousness and even anguish. Continue reading...

The follow-up to My Absolute Darling, this tale of best friends who dream of a better life features exquisite sports writing and a lovable heroine – but the plotting is unconvincing Tamma and Dan are 17-year-old best friends growing up in a California desert town blighted by the strip-mall nihilism of late capitalism. They’re poor. They’re unpopular. Their families are a wasteland. But they have each other and their great shared passion: trad rock climbing. Whenever they can, they head to a climbing route – sometimes a boulder at the edge of a disused parking lot, sometimes a cliff an hour’s hike into a national park – and climb, often with no gear but their bloodied bare hands and tattered shoes. This is the premise of Crux, the second novel from Gabriel Tallent, the author of the critically acclaimed My Absolute Darling. At its heart, it’s a sports novel, and Tallent’s prose here is precise and often exquisite, inching through a few seconds of movement in a way that reflects the unforgiving nature of climbing. We get a lot of closeups of granite and faint half-moons in rock that suddenly become “the world’s numinous edge”. The language of climbing – a dialect of brainy dirtbags – is a gift to the writer. Tallent’s characters talk about “flashing bouldering problems” and “sending Fingerbang Princess”; a list of routes with “Poodle” in the title includes Poodle Smasher, Astropoodle, Poodle-Oids from the Deep, A Farewell to Poodles, and For Whom the Poodle Tolls. Tallent also has an extraordinary gift for descriptions of landscape; a road is “overhung with stooping desert lilies, tarantulas braving the tarmac in paces, running full out upon their knuckly shadows, the headlights smoking with windblown sand”. Continue reading...

A shortlist of 24 images has been selected for the wildlife photographer of the year people’s choice award. You can vote for your favourite image online. The winner will be announced on 25 March and shown from that date as part of the overall wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which runs until 12 July at the Natural History Museum in London Continue reading...

From a gold-covered Dennis Rodman to Jack Nicholson sitting in the snow, Albert Watson has spent a career shooting the stars – as well as the occasional giant coffee spoon Continue reading...

Curated getaways in south-west Wales offer wellbeing and crafty fun for groups of women amid beautiful scenery The scent of hand-poured candles filled the air in the Little Welsh Dresser, one of Llandeilo’s clutch of arts and crafts shops. This vibrant Welsh market town is a creative spot – it’s where the famous Dinefwr wool blankets are woven and boasts many galleries and antique stores – and is a pretty place to wander. Our eyes land on the rows of handmade cards and mugs stamped with Welsh words. One said: Cwtch. Pronounced “kutch” , it has no direct translation into English. “It’s a big, warm hug,” said the shop owner, “but also it’s a feeling, a sense of belonging,” - and a word that would come to define our weekend. We – I was travelling with my friend, Anna – were here to try out Discover Carmarthenshire’s new “The Sisterhood” breaks that tap into the growing trend of women swapping prosecco-fuelled girlie weekends for trips that focus on new skills and wellbeing experiences. For those wanting pre-curated stays there’s a Sisterhood Sorted section on the website, but groups of any size can create a bespoke trip by selecting west, central or coastal Carmarthenshire, choosing from a list of places to stay (from barns to glamping pods ), and then selecting experiences led by Wild Kin, a collection potters, painters, coastal foragers, horse whisperers, walking guides, makers and massage therapists. Continue reading...

Sustainable smartphone takes a step forward with modular accessories, a good screen and mid-range performance The Dutch ethical smartphone brand Fairphone is back with its six-generation Android, aiming to make its repairable phone more modern, modular, affordable and desirable, with screw-in accessories and a user-replaceable battery. The Fairphone 6 costs £499 (€599), making it cheaper than previous models and pitting it squarely against budget champs such as the Google Pixel 9a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, while being repairable at home with long-term software support and a five-year warranty. On paper it sounds like the ideal phone to see out the decade. Continue reading...

​In this week’s newsletter: Years of dragon fatigue and lore overload ​had me running from the Game of Thrones franchise, but this modest new chapter ​offers a reminder of how good simple storytelling can be • Don’t get The Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Just when I thought I was out … just when I thought I would no longer have that sweeping, ever so slightly irritating theme tune ringing around my head for hours on end, or feel the need to remember the difference between House Tyrell, Tully or Arryn, I suddenly find myself pulled back in to the Game of Thrones extended universe. The blame for this goes to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the likably low-key Game of Thrones spin-off series about a cloth-eared hedge knight and his shrewd child squire currently ambling through its first season on HBO/Sky Atlantic. Before its arrival, I had departed Westeros for good. My faith had first been shaken by that rushed, badly plotted final season of Game of Thrones proper, which bashed to bits six previous seasons’ worth of finely tuned political intrigue and fascinating character dynamics in a succession of endless (often badly lit) CGI-laden battles, before flambéing them in dragon fire. Worse came with House of the Dragon, a dreary, po-faced, endlessly withholding slog of a prequel series, the enjoyment of which seemed to rest entirely on whether the viewer was familiar with deep lore buried within a Westeros history book that George RR Martin wrote instead of cracking on with that sixth novel. If, like me, you were not, the show proved to be little more than a confusing conveyor belt of platinum-haired poshos glowering at each other. Oh and dragons. So many dragons. Continue reading...

Strangers used to open doors, help lift my pram and greet me with approval when I looked ‘like a mum’. After one simple haircut, I was treated very differently In November 2000, two weeks after giving birth to my first and only child, I found myself collapsed in bed, breastfeeding in front of Top of the Pops, hair matted, sheets dirty, surrounded by sick-soaked muslin rags. I liked it. Or at least, it felt like a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing, until Madonna – who had given birth to Rocco Ritchie only three months earlier – appeared on the screen in a cropped leather jacket, belly bared, sexy-dancing to Don’t Tell Me. Did I feel inspired? Resentful? Brimming with pity for this attention-seeker? For sure, it was all three. As the weeks wore on, I began to see how it might be possible to shower, put on actual clothes and maybe even pop to the corner shop. Occasional visits to cafes, museums and other warm, baby-friendly spaces soon followed and stopped me from feeling as if I had fallen into a well of loneliness. Continue reading...

Moves to ban under-16s from social media should raise deeper questions about who controls democracy’s digital infrastructure The last UK general election of the 20th century was also the first to anticipate, albeit faintly, the coming technological revolution. The 1997 Labour and Conservative manifestos both included pledges to connect schools to something they called “the information superhighway”. That metaphor soon fell out of use, unmourned, although it contains an interesting policy implication. Roads need rules to prevent accidents. Superhighways do not sound like the kind of places where children should play. Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink? On Monday 30 April, ahead of May elections join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat is Labour from both the Green party and Reform and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader of the Labour party? Book tickets here or at guardian.live Continue reading...

A chocolate orange mousse topped with coffee cream, and a recipe for a luxuriant, thick-cut marmalade If you’re intimidated by making marmalade, the whole-fruit method is the perfect entry point. Blood oranges are simmered whole until soft, perfuming your home as they do so, then they’re sliced, skin and all, mixed with sugar and a fragrant cinnamon stick, and embellished with a shot of amaro. Squirrel the jars away for a grey morning, give a few to deserving friends, and be sure to keep at least one to make this elegant mocha marmalade mousse tart. A cocoa biscuit crust topped with a chocolate marmalade mousse and crowned with a cold brew coffee cream, it’s a delightful trifecta of bitterness that no one will ever guess is an easy no-bake dessert. Continue reading...

Paying attention to the calls of our avian neighbours can reduce stress, find scientists in Germany Feeling stressed? Try a dose of birdsong to lift the spirits. A new study shows that paying attention to the treetop melodies of our feathered friends can boost wellbeing and bring down stress levels. Previous research has shown that people feel better in bird-rich environments, but Christoph Randler, from the University of Tübingen, and colleagues wanted to see if that warm fuzzy feeling translated into measurable physiological changes. They rigged up a park with loudspeakers playing the songs of rare birds and measured the blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels (a marker of stress) of volunteers before and after taking a 30-minute walk through the park. Some volunteers experienced the birdsong-enriched environment, some heard just natural birdsong, and some wore noise-cancelling headphones and heard no birdsong. Half of the recruits were asked to pay attention to the birdsong. Continue reading...

Spokesperson for India’s ministry of external affairs calls for ‘immediate action to recover the missing statue’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Indian government has condemned the theft of a bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi from a community centre in Melbourne’s south-east last month, calling for the culprits to be held accountable. Victoria police are investigating the theft from the Australian Indian Community Centre in Rowville and have warned scrap metal dealers to be wary of people trying to sell the statue of the Indian independence leader. Continue reading...

Inkpen, Berkshire: We’re paying the price now for a poor grass harvest, and the concern is isn’t a one-off bad year At this point in the year, when the growing season seems so far away, last summer’s hay harvest is most remembered, sometimes rued. The hottest summer followed the driest spring in over 100 years in southern England. And although making hay while the sun shines is genuinely crucial, rain is critical to growth. Last year produced a very poor harvest, and hay is now running out. Traditionally, two cuts are made, in late spring and summer, doubling the yield. It’s an ancient, ingenious and hopeful system, and in the case of meadow hay (rather than single-species ryegrass) it benefits nature, removing nutrient‑laden grass and encouraging biodiversity. But long-term studies show that as our weather patterns change, grass-growing potential has declined greatly over the last 80 years. Continue reading...

Alex Pretti had courage and empathy. This, not Maga’s conception of male power, is what we must teach young men The first thing that grabbed me about the Rapture’s 2011 song It Takes Time to be a Man was the warbly, analogue fuzz of its recurring guitar and piano riff. Once that drew me in, what kept me listening were the lyrics’ hard-marriage of masculinity and empathy. In the final verse, Luke Jenner tells us that: “Well there’s room in your heart now / for excellence to take a stand / And there’s tears that need shedding / it’s all part of the plan”. For the past year, rightwing voices have waged war on empathy. According to Elon Musk, empathy is “the fundamental weakness of western civilisation”. Others go further, calling it “toxic”, “suicidal” and even “sinful”. Certainly, the macho wing of the Maga right sees no place for it amid its (mis)appropriation of medieval history and imagery that is visible everywhere from the face paint and horned headdress of the “QAnon shaman”, convicted for his role in the US Capitol siege, to the tattooed arms and body of Donald Trump’s secretary of war, Pete Hegseth. And yet, consider the ideal of chivalry held by medieval knights: generosity and suspicion of profit, courtesy, honesty and the bind of your word, hospitality, abiding by the rules of combat and granting mercy to your adversary – whose life a knight takes only as a last resort. I say this not because I think the medieval knight should be the new standard for modern men, but to point out that Maga men would fail, miserably so, to live up to their own ideals. Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist. H​is memoir, Generation Desperation​, is published in January 2026 Continue reading...