
While some are working out how to get rid of the prime minister, others are already plotting against his rival
It used to be football managers who measured their time at a club in months. Or even days at Spurs. Anything over two years qualifies you for a long service medal. Now it’s prime ministers. In fact it’s worse than that. Because it’s also people who might one day be prime minister.
While some Labour MPs are working out how to get rid of Keir Starmer, others are already plotting how to force Wes Streeting out of office should he jump the gun before Andy Burnham is ready to launch his challenge. Who knows where all this could end? Somewhere in the metasphere. It can’t be long before Liz Truss is no longer our shortest serving prime minister. Long live the lettuce.
Continue reading...In this punchy documentary, satirist Munya Chawawa steps into the ring to trash-talk Trump’s obsession with apeing the world of WrestleMania. The result? A bodyslam
Trump is the ultimate showman. He’s a master of it, a billionaire Barnum, but with a greed so insatiable it moves him ever further from entertainment into malevolence. If the Democrats had realised this earlier and recognised the strength the man was playing to and the particular voting public weaknesses he was preying upon, instead of sneering with distaste, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
In fact, if they had done what comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa does in his punchy, passionate and weirdly uplifting documentary Wrestling With Trump, it might be a slightly better world today. Chawawa takes the not-new but certainly underused idea that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government use the same playbook as that created by the US pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). WWE was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince resigned from various business roles in 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault (he has vigorously denied these allegations). Linda is now the US secretary of education.
Continue reading...There is a revolution reshaping how people want and get their information. News brands can and must react, but the time is now
This is an extract from the Sir David Nicholas memorial lecture that Deborah Turness delivered in London on Tuesday evening
No one can dispute that, today, the news industry is once again experiencing a revolution; a revolution that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. The disruption transcends all news brands. It impacts all journalists and all journalism, everywhere.
I am an optimist. I believe there are very good reasons to believe in a bright future for what I call the established news providers. So I am determined, having spoken to many people for this dispatch from the frontline, to set out a positive way forward.
Continue reading...A countdown of the greatest literature published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?
Continue reading...Sam Battle is a retro audio tech obsessive. Our writer gets a tour of his museum just as he unleashes his prized exhibit: a 1,000-oscillators-strong Megadrone!
‘I didn’t really plan to do Eurovision at all,” muses Sam Battle as he takes me round his museum, pushing a shock of ever-so-slightly mad scientist hair from his youthful face and coaxing drone sounds out of abstract metal boxes as we go. “I was chatting to Johnny, my friend who works here, and we were saying wouldn’t it be funny to do it. So, we sent an email to the BBC asking, ‘Is there any way we can get on it?’ and they said, ‘Well this guy might be interesting …’”
Known to his fans as Look Mum No Computer, Battle has built a cult following with his wild fusions of music and esoteric technology. The persona started life as a side project when he was lead singer with the indie could-have-beens Zibra in the mid 00s. When the band split up in 2016, Battle threw himself into the world of Look Mum No Computer, filling his YouTube with videos of him rejigging everyday technology into weird and wonderful new shapes, whether that be by turning Sega Megadrives into working synths, or Henry vacuum cleaners into flame-throwers. In this world, nothing was thrown away, and any amount of lead could be transmuted into the gold of a song.
Continue reading...Tim Miller’s teen daughter disappeared in 1984, tied to a series of deaths in the Texas ‘killing fields’. After decades, he received a tip that unlocked everything
Tim Miller is good at finding missing people – or rather, their bodies. Four years ago, a stranger called him and left a rambling message claiming that he had important information about an unsolved murder case.
Miller, who lives in Texas and runs a non-profit search-and-recovery organization called EquuSearch, did not treat the message as a high priority. The caller sounded as if he might have been drunk or on drugs. Although tips are vital to EquuSearch’s work, the tip line brings a certain number of hoaxes, cranks and innuendo. Some of the people who leave messages, Miller told me, “probably ought to get their medication checked”.
Continue reading...Downing Street insiders suggest health secretary does not yet have the support for a leadership push
Keir Starmer was increasingly confident that he had seen off the immediate threat to his job on Tuesday after a challenge from Wes Streeting failed to materialise despite several of the health secretary’s allies quitting the government.
Downing Street insiders suggested that the health secretary did not yet have the required support from the 81 MPs he needed to formally launch a leadership bid after Starmer issued a “put up or shut up” ultimatum to his cabinet.
Continue reading...Labour leader remains UK prime minister despite mounting calls to step down before state opening of parliament
As the afternoon faded in Westminster, final preparations were being made for Wednesday’s state opening of parliament, where King Charles will set out a year-long legislative programme for a government that even its most ardent allies fear might not last the week. Once again, here we are.
Keir Starmer is still the UK’s prime minister. It is even possible he might be in a few months from now. But after two days punctuated by confusion and drama on a scale that belies Labour’s promise to end years of political upheaval, his authority appears shredded. What is less certain is what exactly that means.
Continue reading...Planned legislation includes housing, immigration and energy measures, and comes amid awkwardness with the palace over Charles’s role
Keir Starmer will attempt to regain the political initiative on Wednesday as his government announces a package of 35 bills for the next parliamentary session, covering everything from housing to immigration.
The embattled prime minister will release details of dozens of bills that he intends to pass over the next 12 months, even as his own MPs line up to demand his resignation.
Additional reporting by Caroline Davies
Continue reading...PM accused of dragging heels on forcing tech firms to block transmission of nude photos on children’s phones
Internet safety and children’s rights campaigners have accused Keir Starmer of failing to act on proposals to stop children sending and receiving nude images on their phones, after Jess Phillips resigned from the government saying she was tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”.
The Labour politician was one of four ministers who quit on Tuesday and joined more than 80 MPs calling for the prime minister to go.
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