The Tory leader says the party’s plans to cut people’s benefits are no more than ‘common sense’

It’s a thought. A bold one. Possibly a career-ending one. But a thought nonetheless. When Theresa May told the Tory conference in 2002 that under Iain Duncan Smith the Conservatives had become “the Nasty party”, many members took that to mean they had become undesirable. Within a few years, David Cameron had moved the Tories closer to the “hug a husky” centre and by 2010 he was prime minister.

Kemi Badenoch takes a rather different view. For her, being the Nasty party is a badge of honour. An aspiration. People had had it far too good with austerity, Brexit, Covid and the Liz Truss mini-budget. The country needed a reality check; a return to old-fashioned unpleasantness. A taste of genuine hardship. People had got far too used to getting something for nothing. Especially the physically and mentally ill. What they needed was a short sharp shock of intense labour from 8am to 8pm. That would make them feel better. And anyone found skiving would be banged up for a short time in prison. Say 10 years.

By embracing the role of amiable lunk, the wrestler turned actor has become an unlikely, and very modern, leading man. But does his relationship with the WWE, and its controversial former owner, risk tarnishing his brand?

I must admit, I was apprehensive about meeting John Cena. The WWE wrestler turned actor has built an enviable Hollywood career playing idiots – capable idiots with real heart, but dimwits nevertheless. Still, Cena is obviously nobody’s fool; fools don’t rise from humble beginnings to become their generation’s answer to Hulk Hogan or The Rock. Would the Cena who appears on my computer screen be the real one? Or something closer to the comic-book characters he embodies so well: guileless, silly and fond of a deliberate misunderstanding?

It is immediately clear that this is no manchild. Perfectly punctual, he greets me with a lavish formality befitting a man who made his film debut as the title character in The Marine. Within a minute he has volunteered, unprompted, that “a core value of mine is respect”. Cena, 49, is speaking to me on behalf of Matchbox: The Movie, a film extension of the Mattel toy car brand for Apple TV, and for 45 minutes he is generous, funny, complimentary and elusive without ever being evasive. It’s a genuinely radical thing for a man built like a chest freezer – having only recently retired from wrestling after 26 years – to be so relaxed about being ridiculous, and in an age of such joyless online strongmen as Trump, Musk and Andrew Tate, his buff charm is welcome.

Whenever I thought about getting a handle on life – decluttering, sorting my finances, improving my health and productivity – I felt defeated. So I tried this month-long experiment to feel more in control

Alvin and the Chipmunks was my wake-up call. A Blu-ray copy of the film had stared down from my bookshelf for years, accumulating dust, when one day a shard of sunlight landed on it, as if directed by a higher power. This prompted some uncomfortable questions. Had I watched it? No. Did I intend to? No. So why had I let it linger there untouched for such a long time? The answer is simple: I’m a disorganised mess.

Zooming out, things weren’t much better. I had a mountain of clothes that needed to be hung up or put away, cupboards stuffed with God knows what, plates and mugs that I had never used … The thought of sorting everything out was overwhelming.

Andy Burnham is a Westminster leader whom Welsh nationalists could finally work with - but only if he stands up to the devo-sceptics in UK Labour

As I sat in the first Plaid Cymru conference since the party won the Welsh election and started leading the Welsh government, I heard things I had never heard before. I have been to a lot of Plaid conferences and not once have I heard people being really positive about a UK Labour leader. But there was no mistaking it: the Welsh nationalist party feels that Andy Burnham is a man it can work with.

When I interviewed Welsh first minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, he indicated he was hopeful – in a way he never was under Keir Starmer – that there was a prime minister who had a genuine desire to give Wales meaningful concessions when it comes to additional powers.

The star was just eight when his friend was stabbed. Decades on, he’s ready to talk about that day – how it shaped him, and how, as he becomes a father himself, it will shape him as a dad

“I feel a bit nervous,” confesses John Boyega, as he sits down in front of the camera. “Speaking about it could possibly help. I haven’t revisited this in a long time. Yeah, my heart is just beating.” The Attack the Block and Star Wars actor is talking in the opening scene of a new BBC Two documentary about the killing of 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor.

On 27 November 2000, Damilola was stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle and left to die in a concrete stairwell, attacked as he walked home from an after-school club at Peckham library in south London. It took six years and three separate trials at the Old Bailey, costing a total of £16m, to secure a manslaughter conviction. His death shocked the nation not only because he was so young, but because all the suspects were also children. Boyega was one of the last people to see Damilola alive. The pair had enjoyed a close friendship since Damilola’s move to the UK from Nigeria in August of that year.

After Turkish police found drugs on board the Phoenician M, the ship’s chief mate, Ali Albokhari, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. His wife is still fighting to free him

In the early hours of 6 October 2023, Elena Albokhari was woken by a text message from her husband. Ali Albokhari, 42, a Finnish-Syrian with dark hair and cherubic features, was chief mate on a cargo ship named the Phoenician M and had been at sea since June. The 180-metre bulk carrier had docked at Ereğli in the Turkish Black Sea a few days earlier and Ali was due to return home to Helsinki soon, but instead of feeling excitement, Elena was growing increasingly worried about his welfare.

She’d had a similar feeling of unease a month earlier, when the ship had arrived at Barranquilla, Colombia. Ali had called in a panic to report that drugs had been found; Armada Nacional officers had marched onboard and uncovered holdalls stuffed with 137kg cocaine. Labels on the packages – the crest of Turkish football club Kayserispor – hinted at their destination: Turkey was the next port of call. “I never want to work as a seaman again,” Ali told Elena. “We are having big problems.”

Exclusive: Average of nearly five sexual crimes a day against under-13s were reported to police between 2021 and 2025

• From unwanted touching to rape: the scale of child-on-child abuse in English and Welsh schools

Lawyers and campaigners have condemned the “horrifying” scale of child-on-child sexual abuse in schools after a Guardian investigation revealed thousands of sexual offences against under-13s, including multiple rapes, are reported to police every year.

Close to five sexual crimes against children aged 12 and younger were recorded on average by police every day in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, according to Guardian analysis of police data for 2021-25.

Motion calling for single Palestinian state, which is opposed by most Green MPs and expected to be challenged, passes by 1,022 votes to 813

The Greens have formally adopted a policy that equates Zionism with racism and calls for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state, a move opposed by the bulk of the party’s MPs and which is expected to face legal challenge.

Zack Polanski, who heads the Greens in England and Wales and missed the vote at the party’s conference in Brighton to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, has faced criticism for a perceived lack of leadership on a hugely divisive issue.

Attack shortly after Friedrich Merz arrived on unannounced visit intended to underline Germany’s backing

Russia has struck another major bridge in Kyiv as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, arrived in the capital in a show of support for Ukraine.

A Russian drone hit Kyiv’s key Northern Bridge over the Dnipro River, marking the fourth consecutive day that Russia has targeted bridges used by tens of thousands of residents commuting between the city’s two banks. Video footage showed cars driving across the bridge as the drone plunged into the roadway and exploded in a burst of fire. Two people were injured in the strike, said Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

Home secretary warns people traffickers will exploit asylum seekers because they decide who comes to the UK

Nearly all women who try to reach the UK in small boats from northern France have been raped on their journey, Shabana Mahmood has claimed.

In an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast, the home secretary said far-right, balaclava-wearing activists would “kill” or “kick me out of my own country” if they took power.