Sacked civil servant told Commons committee there was pressure from No 10 to approve appointment of Mandelson

Well, what would you do? You’re a top civil servant with more than 25 years of government service. You’ve worked for Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. You went through Brexit hell as a lead negotiator. You were sacked by Boris Johnson and were then brought back by Keir Starmer.

You land a plum job as permanent undersecretary in the Foreign Office and do your boss a favour by appointing his man as ambassador to the US. You’ve already got a knighthood; that peerage is only a matter of time away. Then it all blows up in your face and the prime minister sacks you and trashes your reputation in parliament.

Richard Gadd’s at it again. His unforgiving new drama tackles the damage men do to each other head on, by pulling out his insides and smearing them everywhere. Every man should watch this queasy masterpiece

We have known for some time, I think, that men are not OK. Richard Gadd’s new drama, conceived before his astounding, semi-autobiographical creation Baby Reindeer sent his reputation stratospheric, and now broadcast in the slipstream of that success, is a fiercely intelligent, unforgiving, harrowing attempt to show us how and why.

Half Man begins in the present, with two men circling each other in a dark barn. One, Niall (Jamie Bell), is in full Scottish wedding fig. The other, Ruben (Gadd), is stripped to the waist and has his hands wrapped like a sparring boxer. The fight that is surely about to come does not seem a fair one.

Knowing the difference between hunger and appetite, and understanding the sensory cues behind them, can help us make better decisions about what we eat

Imagine you’re in a meeting room when someone brings out the biscuits – a packet of Jammie Dodgers, perhaps, or a nice little plate of custard creams. Maybe you want one and maybe you don’t, but the chances are the people around you are all responding differently: someone will grab a couple straight away, someone else will eat one without seeming to notice, another will barely be aware the biscuits exist, and someone will spend the whole meeting wanting one but not taking it. Our appetites and responses to food vary wildly – but what’s going on behind the scenes to govern them? And has modern food somehow hijacked the process? Grab a biscuit (or don’t) and settle in.

“First, it’s important to distinguish between hunger and appetite,” says Giles Yeo, a professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and the author of Why Calories Don’t Count. “Hunger is a feeling – it’s what happens in the run-up to you deciding you need to eat something. Appetite is everything that surrounds why we eat – including hunger, fullness and reward, or how you actually feel when you eat. Those three sensations all use completely different parts of the brain, but they all work together.”

Rammed with every music-movie cliche, an almost mute supporting cast and a Michael who only produces endless smiley blandness, this is a frustratingly shallow film

Antoine Fuqua’s demi-biopic of Michael Jackson gives you the chimp, the llama, the giraffe … but not the elephant in the living room. It’s like a 127-minute trailer montage assembling every music-movie cliche you can think of: the producers’ astonishment in the recording studio, the tour bus, the billboard chart ascent, the meeting with the uncool corporate execs in their offices.

The film skates through Jackson’s life from the early days of the Jackson Five, terrorised by belt-wielding dad Joe, to his emergence as a stunningly original, globally adored solo act, culminating in the colossal Wembley Stadium concert in 1988, at which stage he was 30-years-old. And there we leave it, with the baffling surtitle flashed up on screen before the end credits roll: “The story continues”. It certainly does. Does this mean a second, darker movie is in the works? Maybe. Producer Graham King and the Jackson family estate are reportedly considering a “Michael 2”; if this happens, they will have to find a very different film-making style, something other than this bland, slick, corporate hagiography. And there is certainly no clear commitment to anything. All concerned might well think it’s best to exit here, and avoid the controversy, like the stage show MJ: The Musical.

Mousehole in Cornwall once had a butcher, post office and general store. Now it doesn’t even have an ATM – and one of its crucial bus services has been cut. Can residents save this vital resource?

It’s early April and the sun is shining over Mousehole, Cornwall, as an older couple trudge up the hill to their nearest bus stop before sinking into two of the plastic chairs that have been lined up on the side of the road. Until recently, buses would come right to the centre of the fishing village, the couple are soon explaining to a pair of Australian tourists also waiting for the bus. But when the bus route was taken over by the Go-Ahead transport group in February, the small, ice-cream-van-like buses that had been used by the previous bus company, First Bus, were swapped for full-size buses – some of them double deckers – that wouldn’t be safe to drive through Mousehole’s narrow streets. So the route, which has been taking passengers down to the harbour since the 1920s, was cut short, and now ends at the edge of the village.

You don’t have to spend long in Mousehole, described as “the loveliest village in England” by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, to learn of residents’ dismay over this change. “Save Our Stop” flyers have been stuck in the windows of houses and businesses, while a banner adorns the railing next to where the old stop used to be, inviting passersby to sign the petition to have it reinstated and “make Mousehole accessible to all again” – a petition that now has more than 5,000 signatures.

Our Legacies of Enslavement team has found humanity and dignity, not blame or guilt, are at the heart of the conversation

Guardian owner heralds next phase in Legacies of Enslavement restorative justice plan

There’s an image, a feeling, that I haven’t been able to get out of mind since my last visit to the Sea Islands, US, in March. That of living in a small box, compressed on all sides. From above, your basic services are being neglected or withheld; from the sides, your ability to find a job or make a living is cut away; from below, a steady assault on your self-esteem as you are criminalised, ignored, gaslit or made to feel invisible. And imagine having to raise a family, make ends meet, maintain your physical and mental health in that box. At some point the air is going to thin out.

Occasionally, a glimpse of something offers respite. A flock of birds against the sky. The sway of the Spanish moss on the oak tree that has binya (“been here”; a Gullah Geechee term used to describe Sea Islands natives) for hundreds of years, that has seen Jim Crow, Reconstruction and maybe even enslavement. You hear the flow of the water as it laps against the dock. The water that represents a passage to the motherland. And life feels worth living.

Sacked civil servant discloses he overturned vetting ruling without knowing full extent of national security concerns

The sacked senior civil servant Oliver Robbins has said he was subject to “constant pressure” when he started working at the Foreign Office to get Peter Mandelson in post as soon as possible.

He said the Cabinet Office urged the Foreign Office to allow Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US without the usual vetting process but the Foreign Office pushed back and the vetting eventually went ahead.

Keir Starmer’s decision to oust senior official may have knock-on effect for No 10’s relationship with civil service

Fury within Whitehall about the treatment of Olly Robbins remains white hot several days on from Keir Starmer’s decision to sack the senior Foreign Office civil servant.

“It’s just total self-serving, narrow, selfish, political-endgame stuff,” said one supporter of Robbins, who was dismissed for failing to tell the prime minister that the now disgraced former US ambassador Peter Mandelson had not passed UK security vetting.

The Foreign Office chief sacked over the Peter Mandelson security vetting scandal has finally given his side of the story in an explosive appearance before MPs. Olly Robbins told the foreign affairs select committee that he faced ‘constant pressure’ to get Mandelson in post as US ambassador as soon as possible, and claimed Downing Street took a ‘dismissive’ attitude to vetting. It came a day after Keir Starmer accused Robbins of ‘obstructing the truth’ about the vetting process in a high-stakes appearance in parliament.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar

Donald Trump says US ready to renew attacks but Iran appears unwilling to bend to president’s threats

Intense efforts are under way to bring Iran and the US together in Pakistan for a new round of talks a day before the end of the two-week ceasefire that has paused the conflict in the Middle East.

Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was ready to renew attacks against Iran if progress was not made at any talks, with the US military “raring to go”.