Got battered at the polls? No problem. Just act like voters want more of what you’re selling – not considerably less

As David Lammy put it on Thursday in a dispatch from Gorton and Denton: “Only Labour can stop Reform.” And listen, stopping them by taking third place and haemorrhaging half your support from a general election that took place 19 months ago in an area where you haven’t lost an election for almost 100 years is definitely an intriguing way to do it.

Only the Tories sound more furniture-munchingly insane after the Green win last night, announcing the result shows that “only the Conservatives have the experience, the plans and the team to ensure a stronger economy and a stronger country”. Guys? Your candidate LOST THEIR DEPOSIT. Your candidate pulled in the worst ever English byelection result in Conservative party history. This is a bit like the German military surfacing the morning after Operation Bagration in 1944, surveying the wreckage of the eastern front and declaring: “Lads, we’ve got this. Trust the process!”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Arsenal and Liverpool will fancy their chance of making the quarter-finals, while Manchester City and Newcastle face tougher routes

The Club World Cup final victory over Paris Saint-Germain last summer was probably Enzo Maresca’s finest hour as Chelsea manager. He devised a gameplan, pinging balls over Nuno Mendes for Cole Palmer to chase, backed up by Malo Gusto, that tore the European champions apart in the first half. Liam Rosenior may try to exploit the same vulnerability, but this is a Chelsea that look weary, their exertions in the US perhaps having left them fatigued.

A growing number of parents are letting their young children train with weights. But is it a good – or safe – idea? We ask the experts to weigh in

Most parents remember the first time their baby smiled or when they took their first steps. Eve Stevenson recalls different milestones. “Watching my daughter, Madison, deadlift 35kg at the age of six was pretty cool,” she says, grinning with pride from her living room in south-west London.

As a personal trainer (PT) and former British weightlifting champion, her daughter’s achievements shouldn’t really be that surprising. Still, Stevenson has been on the receiving end of some harsh opinions about her daughter and three-year-old son, Beau, doing resistance training with her. “People tell me it will stunt their growth or that it’s dangerous,” she says. She is also often accused of forcing her children to train, when actually it all started the other way round. “What child doesn’t look at their parents and want to do what they’re doing?” she asks. And although to many people the idea of a small child strength training or competing might feel jarring, Stevenson is among a growing number of parents who see value in helping their children build muscles.

With most Scots supportive of reintroducing the wild cat, charities are focusing on those whose jobs could be affected

Could lynx, the elusive wild cat driven to extinction in Britain more than 1,000 years ago, become the new Loch Ness monster? “Whether Nessie’s there or not, she draws tourists,” said Margaret Luckwell, a resident of Moray, Scotland. “It would be the same with lynx. I’d love to see a lynx in the wild.”

Luckwell’s view is a majority one among local people gathering at village halls across the Highlands, as a painstaking consultation slowly gathers momentum for the apex predator’s return to Scottish forests.

The Emmy-winning singer and actor was so struck by the standup’s autobiographical one-man show Sugar Daddy that he signed on as producer. The pair discuss ‘bears’, blood sugar and bridging the divides between generations of gay men

Sugar Daddy is a one-man show about “love, grief and insulin” by the 31-year-old standup Sam Morrison. An autobiographical monologue that turns tragedy into comedy, it tells of how Morrison fell in love with Jonathan, who was 24 years his senior, after meeting him at a gay bear festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2021, two and a half years into their relationship, Jonathan died from Covid.

For the last four years, Morrison has been performing Sugar Daddy around the world; next month he brings an updated version to London’s West End. The co-producer is Billy Porter, 56, the Emmy-winning singer, actor and director whose credits include Pose, American Horror Story and Cabaret.

Tapalpa deserted and scared by day of terror when military raid brought feared drug lord’s reign to an end

Two days before one of the world’s most powerful drug lords was killed while trying to flee a chalet in the hills outside Mexico’s second biggest city, the Tapalpa Country Club posted an advert on Instagram inviting lovers to visit a place where they could “inhale peace [and] exhale stress”.

“Date idea: Escape to Tapalpa,” read the message, advertising romantic private cabins, picnics with spectacular lake views and a golf course “to have fun together”.

Scale of defeat to Greens has plunged party into fresh despair and again raised prospect of leadership challenge

Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton.

Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday. Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.

Labour billed it as ‘two-horse race’ with Reform UK, but Greens’ media campaign, and Hannah Spencer’s authenticity, wins the day

From the outset of the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour strategists were desperate to say the party was on course to win, but the party’s trouncing at the hands of the Greens has made this look laughable in hindsight.

Hollie Ridley, Labour’s general secretary, sent a note to No 10 at the end of January saying it was “clearly a two-horse race” with Reform UK, and only 3% of voters saying they would stick with the Greens.

Nigel Farage says his party was victim of ‘cheating’ in Gorton and Denton byelection, although Manchester council says no issues reported

Reform UK and the Conservatives have asked the elections watchdog to investigate allegations of corrupt voting in the Gorton and Denton byelection as Nigel Farage claimed there had been “cheating”, despite limited evidence of wrongdoing.

The reports to the Electoral Commission come after an election observers group, Democracy Volunteers, said they had witnessed “concerningly high levels” of so-called family voting, where one family member dictates how others cast their ballot.

Matt Goodwin claimed cheating in Gorton and Denton, Angeliki Stogia fled, Keir was tin-eared and Kemi brought the comedy

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It could have been a flash of arrogance. Hubris for the ages. On Thursday morning, when most pundits were still calling the Gorton and Denton byelection a three-way fight that was impossible to call, the Green party sent a note to journalists. Come to the first press conference of Hannah Spencer MP tomorrow. And while you’re about it, stay on to join her for her first constituency surgery. What could possibly go wrong? As it happens … absolutely nothing.

In the end it wasn’t even close, with the Greens getting 40% of the vote and Reform trailing a long way behind in second on 28%. Labour came a distant third on 25%. About the worst possible result for them, leaving in tatters the idea that they were the only progressive party on the left that could defeat Reform. For the Greens, this was a night of undiluted triumph. The first byelection victory in their history. In a seat they had never previously targeted. Life couldn’t be more sweet.