Find a course at one of the top universities in the country. Our league tables rank them all subject by subject, as well as by student satisfaction, staff numbers, spending and career prospects

She’s tackled neoliberalism and the digital world, now the writer and activist is taking on tech billionaires. She explains how the super-rich are capitalising on climate and financial chaos in pursuit of power

Naomi Klein’s new book starts on a mountaintop with two “faithful men gathering an audience to share their vision”. It’s a vision of a paradise city, gated at every entrance, no need for weapons there, everyone in it rich. One of the men has tears in his eyes as he describes its beauty. The opening scene of End Times Fascism, co-written with Astra Taylor, is not a metaphor, however. The men are Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The year is 2026, the mountain is Davos. The paradise city will be called New Gaza.

The World Economic Forum get-together in Davos, Switzerland, has always had a twin purpose – to provide a platform for the super-rich to describe all the good they are doing on poverty and climate, and to give us a glimpse into their enviable lives. This year what we witnessed was, quite brazenly, the world’s richest men gathering to discuss the real estate possibilities of a mass grave.

A militaristic operation with features of influencer culture, the new anti-migrant movement seems to show a shift in tactics and rhetoric

Shortly after 7am last Saturday in the English coastal town of Dover, livestreamed footage distributed by Britain’s newest anti-migrant movement showed dozens of men in paramilitary outfits jumping out from the backs of vehicles, their faces covered beneath balaclavas, their hands in black gloves.

Within an hour, hundreds more masked agitators, dressed head to toe in black, some wearing silver crosses around their necks, were marching through the town’s streets, clapping and chanting “Stop the boats” and “Christ is king”, blockading the busy port for hours.

As she introduces the latest member of her Gruffalo family, Julia Donaldson talks about storytelling, loss and the worries that come with being Britain’s all-time bestselling author

In 1999 a journalist asked a then-unknown author to share her millennium wish. The author, who was 51 years old and had published only one book before, said she hoped her new one, out that year, would become a classic. “But then straight away I said: ‘Only joking!’ Because I didn’t want to sound full of myself, and I certainly didn’t think the wish would come true,” she remembers today.

That author is Julia Donaldson; the book she published in 1999 was The Gruffalo; and, as you hardly need telling, her wish did indeed come true. And how. Since its publication, more than 18.2m copies of The Gruffalo and its sequel have sold worldwide. The Gruffalo’s Child was published in 2004, and together these tales of the terrible creature with terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, have helped Donaldson to sell more than 50m books in the UK. In 2025 she was named the country’s bestselling author – across all genres, children’s and adult’s – since records began.

People making a living from being funny should be exempt from the beauty rules the rest of society plays by

It’s a fact that being funny is an evolutionary trait, developed by the unattractive to entice the very good-looking to mate with them. Yes, that is a fact, and no I won’t look it up. And therefore it is not OK for attractive people to also be funny. And I don’t think that I’m going too far when I say that comedians being hot is a crime against nature.

I use the word “hot” intentionally. Beauty is ineffable. It can be found anywhere and in anyone. Hotness is different. It’s playing the game of society’s beauty norms and winning. Although, by spending any time playing, you have lost (like golf). I’m not ugly, but I’ll never be hot. I simply don’t have it in me. The effort! The commitment! The other day I went to a wedding and thought to myself: “I really like this couple, maybe I’ll shave above the knee.” A hot person would have probably already been professionally hairless, and, if not would have booked in a wax ASAP.

Amy Annette is a comedian

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Influencers aren’t just battling competitors for brand deals. They’re now battling AI versions of themselves

Earlier this year, Emily Schuman, the creator of the lifestyle blog Cupcakes and Cashmere, saw a photo of herself she didn’t recognize on Instagram. In a sponsored ad, Schuman, who has more than 500,000 Instagram followers, is holding up a vial of GLP-1 drugs, advertising the telehealth company Gala. There was just one problem: Schuman had never heard of Gala and had nothing to do with the ad.

The ad was based on a digitally altered version of a selfie Schuman had taken in her car and posted on Instagram years earlier. Once her followers got wind, they flooded her inbox with questions about the sponsorship as it didn’t seem consistent with Schuman’s personal brand. Soon after, Schuman discovered this was just the beginning. There was also an Instagram post where an AI version of her with darker hair appears to apply foundation to promote a makeup brand called Meroda Cosmetics, and TikTok posts with generated images of her promoting the blood testing company Superpower.

Party leader, Nigel Farage, ‘humbled’ by contributions from billionaires as Harborne addresses ‘media speculation’

• Analysis: donations of £72m make Reform’s prospects both rosier and riskier

The cryptocurrency tycoon Christopher Harborne has given £36m to Reform UK, matching a donation from fellow billionaire Ben Delo.

The pledges mean Reform has received a cash injection of £72m in just 24 hours. They are jointly the largest donations made to a UK political party and have intensified calls for restrictions on money received from individual donors.

Exclusive: Many ‘use community protection as a cover for racist thuggery’, raising concerns about fresh disorder

At least 28 anti-migrant vigilante groups have formed in the UK in the last 18 months, ranging from unauthorised street patrols claiming to protect women and children to groups harassing migrants in France and blocking ports.

From Belfast to the south coast of England, the number of active groups has surged since the summer of 2025, according to analysis by the Guardian, amid widespread concerns over fresh disorder after black-clad vigilantes, many of them wearing balaclavas, blocked roads in Portsmouth and Dover last weekend.

US president say on visit to republic that unification will happen eventually so ‘may as well happen now’

Donald Trump has said he would “love” to see a united Ireland and that it “may as well happen now”.

The US president appeared to endorse the push for constitutional change on the island at the start of a two-day visit to Ireland on Saturday. The unexpected intervention prompted a swift rebuttal from the UK government and Northern Ireland’s unionist leaders.

Incident is latest to raise questions over Israel’s ability or willingness to stop violent settlers in occupied territory

An Israeli soldier has shot a Palestinian man, wounding him in the leg, as settlers confronted villagers by grazing livestock on Palestinian-owned land in the town of Faqqua in the occupied West Bank.

Witnesses said a group of settlers had entered the area with their livestock, prompting residents to try to stop them. Israeli forces then intervened and, according to men at the scene, opened fire at residents. One of them shot Qassem Hussam, a Palestinian man in his mid-30s, wounding him in the leg.