No, I don’t want to go for a girl walk before my girl dinner with my girl mates: I am a grown woman who walks and eats and votes – and, patriarchy, I am on to you

This morning, after waking up with my girl cats, I made myself a cup of girl coffee then got stuck into some girl work. I took a break to lift some girl weights, then sent some more girl emails. Finally, after my girl dinner, it was time to get some sleep ahead of another long, hard day of being a girl.

I know what you’re thinking: why is this woman so insistent on gendering her unremarkable activities, and infantilising herself when she is clearly an adult? It’s a fair question. Since the pandemic, when “hot girl walks” followed Megan Thee Stallion’s 2019 song Hot Girl Summer to become one of the first big TikTok trends, this framing has become dismayingly ubiquitous, in person and online.

Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist

He’s the titan of TV who revived a flatlined Doctor Who and turned British queer life into jaw-dropping drama. But the screenwriter’s groundbreaking writing has sometimes made him a target of hate – from homophobes and Whovians alike

• ‘Goodbye Whoniverse. God, that was fun!’: Read an exclusive extract from Davies’s memoir

Russell T Davies is a man who prefers to look on the bright side. That time he was gay-bashed by a gang of bus conductors? “People have been beaten up far worse than me, that was just a bit of a thumping in the street.” When the production schedule of his dystopian drama Years and Years forced him back to work within days of his husband’s death? “Writing was a nice escape.” Even a story about his “tough” father branding him “yesterday’s man” after his initial departure as showrunner on Doctor Who concludes with a cheerful: “I knew I wasn’t.” It’s easy to see how he’s earned a reputation as the most affable man in TV, if not the world. So why has he taken to keeping a kitchen knife by his front door, “ready to use”?

“I’m called a paedophile and a groomer online by people like [Father Ted creator and anti-trans activist] Graham Linehan, and now people believe what they read. People believe it when they’re told the Earth is flat,” he says. His support for trans rights has resulted in years of death threats and “groomer” smears, which he used to brush off. “But the online world is becoming the real world. People have worked out my address, and one person turned up at my house. If you believe a paedophile lives here, it’s not the maddest thing in the world to come and get me. I’ve been saying for years that our rights are paper-thin, and here we are. What scares me is that I can’t see an end to it. Nothing is going to unseat these tech barons – it will require some sort of revolution to stop them. So for the first time in history, hatred is being monetised by an algorithm.”

Green party debate over the motion ‘Zionism is racism’ comes amid renewed arguments over the meaning and history of a contested term

Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green party, has said he is an anti-Zionist. As his party conference prepares to debate a motion that “Zionism is racism”, what precisely is Zionism and what is the history of the claim that it is racist?

For decades, the capital’s house prices raced ahead of the national average – but now they are falling in prime areas

An elegant Georgian facade, a full-width balcony and an exclusive address in South Kensington just steps from the Natural History Museum and the V&A. Yet the listing price of this west London flat at Queen’s Gate Gardens has dropped by nearly £1m since last year, to £4.4m.

It is far from an isolated case. A nearby house originally listed at £20m was slashed to £14m this year, says a local estate agent. In neighbouring Notting Hill, a stucco-fronted property that came to market two years ago at £16m is now being offered for less than £14m, they said.

Former England winger could face a prison term next month and his career collapse raises many questions

In another world, where careers broke in different directions, Raheem Sterling would be in this England squad now, playing for the manager, Thomas Tuchel, who made him the No 1 target of the new Chelsea era after the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover.

He is 16 months younger than Harry Kane, who continues to break records as England’s captain and hit a personal high of 73 goals last season. Sterling, meanwhile, is without a club and awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty at Basingstoke magistrates court to dangerous driving and possession of nitrous oxide after an incident that witnesses feared might kill someone.

On the day Andy Burnham spoke of the wrong turn Britain took under Thatcher, football was facing a day of reckoning over its own story of corporate acquisition

It was somehow fitting that Tuesday’s damning ruling against Manchester City landed in the heart of the Labour party conference, in the afterglow of Andy Burnham’s rapturously received prime minister’s speech.

I was there, and read the astonishing 40 pages of findings – that City created “sham” contracts to boost income artificially by £900m – on my phone during a long meeting of the Socialist Campaign Group, where people were celebrating Keir Starmer’s ousting and Burnham’s more leftwing direction.

Exclusive: Findings will bolster those in No 10 who want to negotiate on re-entry but some senior figures remain wary

Andy Burnham’s personal preference to rejoin the European Union after the next election is supported by almost half of all voters, a new megapoll has found, although cabinet ministers concerned about reopening Brexit divides are privately urging him to proceed with caution.

The poll by the Messina Group (TMG) found that renegotiating the UK’s relationship with the EU could boost Labour’s vote share by as much as seven points, if the prime minister offered a fresh referendum in which he campaigned to re-enter the bloc.

• Rui Pinto faces loss of witness safeguarding in Portugal

• More documents over City affairs may be made available

Rui Pinto, whose leaks helped to trigger the Premier League’s investigation into Manchester City’s financial affairs, is prepared to help authorities in the UK with their legal case in exchange for protection from threats, the Guardian understands.

Despite the crowdfunding campaign launched on Friday to fund a new life after leaving the protection of the Portuguese police, the whistleblower’s priority remains to cooperate, provided adequate security arrangements are in place.

Hammersmith and Fulham says it faces ‘biggest financial challenge in living memory’ as government cuts bite

A flagship Labour authority has warned it may have to impose a 150% council tax rise on residents to maintain current services following central government cuts under a new funding settlement.

Hammersmith and Fulham council’s cabinet has concluded in a report due to be published on Monday that such a rise would cost Band D households an additional £29.11 a week in 2027/28.

Attorney general says ‘terrorist attack’ was attempted by suspect who is said to have been barred from flying by Oman because of extremist views

The co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 used an axe to attempt to carry out a “terrorist attack” during the Israel-bound flight, the United ⁠Arab Emirates prosecutor general has said.

Disaster was narrowly averted on Wednesday when passengers and crew intervened to stop the co-pilot from his attempt to take control of the plane, which had 182 people on board and plunged 16,625ft in just over 30 seconds. The descent was so extreme that part of the rudder was ripped off.