With an experimental and maxed-out sound, bold new MCs are emerging from all corners of the UK – and with US rap in the doldrums, the time is ripe for another British Invasion

It’s early November and London’s Electric Ballroom is heaving. The warm-up DJ drops Fetty Wap’s 2014 smash Trap Queen, and the young crowd, a fair portion of whom were in primary school when the tune first came out, roar every word. They’re clad in baggy skatewear, with distressed, monochromatic union jacks plastered across hats and jackets. A coat sails across the room: someone is going home chilly tonight, but that’ll be the last thing on their mind as Liverpool rapper EsDeeKid, one of the fastest-rising musicians in the world, explodes on to the stage.

Wrapped in a hooded cloak and spinning like a twig in a hurricane, he grabs the mic and snarls: “Are you ready for rebellion?”, his distinctive scouse accent battling a storm of apocalyptic bass and John Carpenter-esque horror synths. Behind him, projections flash in stark black and red – tower blocks, eyeballs, dot-matrix geometries – more like the ragged photocopy aesthetic of 80s post-punk than any luxury rap branding. The teenagers in the room are ecstatic, borne aloft by the palpable sense, thrumming from stage to pit, that this is A Moment.

For this year’s Guardian charity appeal we are asking readers to donate to Citizens UK, The Linking Network, Locality, Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust and Who is Your Neighbour?

• Donate to our charity appeal here

It has been an unsettling year of social division, anger and unrest in the UK and beyond. Extremist violence and rhetoric are escalating, with the demonisation of migrants reaching a fever pitch. Far-right activists march in the streets. NHS nurses, care workers and charities face abuse amid a resurgence of “1970s-style racism”.

Against this toxic backdrop, the Guardian is launching its 2025 charity appeal on Friday. This year’s theme, unapologetically, is hope. We are supporting grassroots charities, which, through their vital work at the heart of local neighbourhoods, nurture community pride and positive change, and provide a powerful antidote to polarisation, distrust and hate.

Designer Michael Schmidt’s 36-piece collection was made from the wool of rams who have shown same-sex attraction

When a ram tips its head back, curls its upper lip, and takes a deep breath – what is known in the world of animal husbandry as a “flehmen response” – it is often a sign of arousal. Sheep have a small sensory organ located above the roof of the mouth, and the flehmen response helps to flood it with any sex pheromones wafting about.

Usually, rams flehmen when they encounter ewes during the mating period, according to Michael Stücke, a farmer with 30 years of experience raising sheep in Westphalia, Germany. But on Stücke’s farm, the rams flehmen “all the time”.

Many users of the app were shocked, this week, by this addition to the Spotify Wrapped roundup – especially twentysomethings who were judged to be 100

“Age is just a number. So don’t take this personally.” Those words were the first inkling I had that I was about to receive some very bad news.

I woke up on Wednesday with a mild hangover after celebrating my 44th birthday. Unfortunately for me, this was the day Spotify released “Spotify Wrapped”, its analysis of (in my case) the 4,863 minutes I had spent listening to music on its platform over the past year. And this year, for the first time, they are calculating the “listening age” of all their users.

Whether it’s hair rollers, giant ice cubes or beer mats, your festive favourites make one thing clear: it’s party time

• The best Christmas gifts for 2025

Ever wish you could read people’s minds when giving them their Christmas presents?

Working for the Filter is like having that wish granted, only without the emotional fallout. You see, we get to find out which of our gift guide recommendations you’ve really loved – as opposed to the ones that make you say, “Oh, you really shouldn’t have.”

Everyone’s favourite former PM is back! Her mission? To save Britain from its current ‘doomloop’ with, you guessed it, a YouTube talkshow

Will you be seeing a pantomime this year? Birmingham’s got Gok Wan and Biggins in Robin Hood, Bradford has Sinitta in Snow White, while Bromley landed Su Pollard for Beauty and the Beast. And at the end of YouTube’s infinite pier, there’s The Liz Truss Show, starring She’s-Behind-You herself. Curtain up on that one is tonight at 6pm.

According to the producers, Liz’s show “confronts the issues that others tiptoe around”. Wow. The lives, loves, and clinical explanations? Let’s just say I’d watch that. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the format. Instead, like all seasonal entertainment, The Liz Truss Show is based on a fairytale. “The deep state and their allies in the media and politics tried to destroy me,” madam explains in a statement, “now I’m back.” Are the gilt markets the deep state now? Honestly, I can’t keep up. You’ll remember that the irony of Truss’s flameout at the hands of market forces was particularly acute given that she had spent an entire career explaining that free markets were the greatest judge of absolutely everything. Small ideological adjustment: free markets are now the greatest judge of everything except the ideas and personage of Liz Truss.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Exclusive: Group’s open letter says Reform UK leader must take responsibility for behaviour as a schoolboy

A group of Holocaust survivors have demanded Nigel Farage tell the truth and apologise for the antisemitic comments that fellow pupils of Dulwich college allege he made toward Jewish pupils.

The Reform UK leader has said he never racially abused anyone with intent but may have engaged in “banter in a playground”.

⚽ Draw begins in Washington DC at 5pm GMT / 12pm local
⚽ Draw explainer | Qualifiers | Follow on Bluesky | Mail us

Benjamin gets in touch: “I am webmaster of www.national-football-teams.com !

“As you can imagine, draw day is quite something when international football is one of your things. I want to chip in on possible groups of death. These are the two of the hardest groups I could come up with:

Argentina

Morocco

Norway

Italy (If they qualify)

Spain

Colombia

Ivory Coast

Denmark (If they qualify)

Canada

Austria

Qatar

Cape Verde

Belgium

Iran

South Africa

Curacao

Nathaniel Spencer, from Birmingham, is accused of 45 offences, including some against children under 13

A former doctor has been charged with carrying out sexual assaults against 38 people who were patients in his care.

Nathaniel Spencer, from Birmingham, is accused of dozens of acts of sexual assault, some of them against children younger than 13, between 2017 and 2021.

Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said the government was not ‘backing away’ from benefits changes

The UK welfare system is not helping enough people into work and has significantly rising costs, and no one should think the government is backing away from reforming it, the work and pensions secretary has said.

Pat McFadden made the comments as the government published its new child poverty strategy on Friday.