Manager must put semi-final loss to Newcastle behind them with depleted squad attempting to chase down Liverpool

“Mikel Arteta, it must be the ball.” With hindsight, the Arsenal manager would probably not have criticised the equipment used in the Carabao Cup after his side’s chastening defeat in the first leg of their semi-final against Newcastle at the Emirates last month. But after another traumatic 2-0 loss to Eddie Howe’s side – Arsenal’s third blank in a row at St James’ Park – during which home supporters gleefully teased Arteta about his comments, it was surely not his only regret.

Three times since the Spaniard won the FA Cup seven months after succeeding Unai Emery in 2019, Arsenal have reached a semi-final and failed to progress. On the previous occasion they reached this stage of the Carabao Cup, three seasons ago, they were also beaten 2-0 in the home leg, by Liverpool. It is a trophy they have not won since Steve Morrow’s decisive goal against Sheffield Wednesday in the 1993 final, after which the Northern Ireland midfielder was dropped by Tony Adams and broke an arm.

The US president is quick to roll out the red carpet for an ally wanted for war crimes. Now Europe must stop placating them

Donald Trump’s proposal to evict 2 million Palestinians from Gaza is an unashamed declaration of support for ethnic cleansing. As so often, he seems ready to ignore moral and legal codes alike. “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” is listed in the Rome statute of the international criminal court as a crime against humanity. And yet a US president has put that idea on the table. Trump insists this would be in everybody’s interest. According to him, Palestinians would not want to return to their homes. “I have heard that Gaza has been very unlucky for them,” he recently said. The population is, in Trump’s words, “living in hell”, with “death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over”. He made no mention of Israel’s responsibility for that death and destruction and rubble.

More than 30 years ago, during the early months of the bloody Bosnian war that I had been reporting on as the eastern Europe editor of the Independent, the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadžić, explained to me that the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population that was then under way was, in fact, doing the Bosnians a favour. “We let them go,” Karadžić explained with a smile, “with their luggage and everything.” Like Karadžić, Trump does not hide the fact that Palestinians who are forced to abandon their homes would have no choice in the matter. Sitting next to Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested: “I don’t think they’re going to tell me no.”

Steve Crawshaw is author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice

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Résumé of pop singer and RNC co-chair will now include hosting a show focusing on ‘the Golden Age of America’

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the president, will host a new show on Fox News, the network announced, in a further sign of the fluidity between the rightwing news channel and the Trump administration.

My View With Lara Trump will air on Saturday nights, Fox News said in a press release. It said Trump’s show “will focus on the return of common sense to all corners of American life as the country ushers in a new era of practicality”.

Linda Geddes tests new approach developed in Italian lab that involves alternating egg between different temperatures

Delia Smith demands one minute of simmering plus six of standing with the pan lid on. Heston Blumenthal brings his to the boil from cold. Now scientists have weighed in on the perfect way to boil an egg, and the results are egg-stremely tasty.

From a materials perspective, cooking an egg within its shell is more complicated than it might at first seem. Chefs are challenged by the fact that an egg’s components: yolk and white, are made of different proteins that denature and thicken at different temperatures: 85C (185F) for the white and 65C (149F) for the yolk.

It’s not often that actors criticise their own work. But whether it’s down to movies being slammed for whitewashing or transphobia – or just shonky sets – occasionally they feel they have no choice

When it comes to what movies can get away with, tastes change fast. Just ask Benedict Cumberbatch, who decided to play for laughs a non-binary character named All in Ben Stiller’s 2016 film Zoolander 2. That said, the role was controversial at the time – there was an online petition urging a boycott. But it has only looked more tone-deaf over time.

Area known as La Negresse will be renamed after court decides it is demeaning to people of African origin

A French court has ruled that the seaside city of Biarritz must rename its La Negresse historic district, possibly named after a black woman, after a case brought by activists who argued it was an outdated legacy of colonialism.

The ruling caps a long-running attempt by activists to force authorities in the resort on the Atlantic coast to drop what they say are “racist and sexist” placenames.

New trailers for Fantastic Four, Smurfs and Jurassic World movies give us an early glimpse at a summer that’s looking even more tired than usual

It’s Super Bowl season, which means it’s also time for movie studios to start rolling out trailers for some of the biggest, most anticipated movies of the summer. This week alone has seen the release of the first trailers for Jurassic World: Rebirth, Fantastic Four: The First Steps, and – hold your breath – a new Smurfs movie, joining the Superman trailer that was unveiled a few weeks ago. These are likely to be supplemented by additional Super Bowl ads for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, among others.

If this all sounds familiar, well, it should. Unless Disney drops a spot for their upcoming Pixar cartoon Elio, every summer movie receiving the big Super Bowl promo will be a sequel or a high-profile reboot (which is what we’ve been trained to call a remake). This is because just about every big movie coming out in summer 2025 is, yes, a sequel or a reboot of a well-known franchise. The coming attractions include Thunderbolts*, a Marvel entry that looks like a de facto sequel to Black Widow; more traditional follow-ups to Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible, and The Bad Guys; legacy sequels to The Karate Kid and Freaky Friday; reboots of the entire DC Universe (via Superman), as well as the Smurfs and The Naked Gun; a John Wick spinoff called Ballerina; remakes of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon; and new horror installments in the 28 Days Later, M3GAN, Final Destination, and I Know What You Did Last Summer series.

We would like to hear about tattoos you regret, and your experiences of having them removed

Comedian Pete Davidson has revealed that he underwent a lengthy process of removing around 200 tattoos.

“I’m trying to clean slate it, trying to be an adult,” he said during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He added that he only saw himself keeping “two or three” of them.

• England 248; India 251-6, win first ODI by four wickets
• Tourists lose three wickets in eight balls in collapse

A different format, a much-changed India, but the same result. England fell to a four-wicket defeat in the opening one-day international at Nagpur, Shubman Gill top-scoring with 87 in a successful chase of 249.

Gill, who did not play in the preceding Twenty20 series, was backed up by half-centuries from Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel in what was no straightforward reply. England’s spinners found assistance, with India requiring technique and ticker to take the lead in the three-match series.

The entrepreneurial reality show has just turned 20 … and it’s never been worse. It’s almost impossible to believe any of the bragging, soundbite-spewing chancers are even good at business

The opening scenes of The Apprentice – Lord Alan Sugar’s search for a new business partner – have become a yearly tradition on British TV. We meet a squad of suited and bodycon business dress-clad candidates, who seem to be competing to say the most ridiculous thing. “I’m like a lion in the business world. Fierce, hungry and ready to devour my prey,” says Chisola Chitambala, a contestant on the latest series, which is airing weekly on BBC One. “The level of competitiveness I have is disgusting! I am the human equivalent of a tank. Nothing gets in my way,” insists meal-prep entrepreneur Mia Collins. “I can sleep when I’m dead!” proclaims Amber-Rose Badrudin, while hair-transplant consultant Carlo Brancati boasts: “What others can earn in a month takes me one hour.” (This gives rise to the question: what are you doing here, then?)

The first series of The Apprentice premiered 20 years ago this month on BBC Two. The days when it felt like a genuinely exciting format are long gone, however, because it is now one of the most predictable shows on TV. Ratings have stalled, it’s being panned by critics and it has grown into a high-cringe spectacle – one that symbolises a wider slide in standards in reality TV and beyond.

• Co-owner and chairman is a director of Vivid Seats
• Premier League lists as ‘unauthorised ticket website’

Chelsea supporters have accused Todd Boehly of a “breach of trust” and a potential conflict of interest over his co-ownership of a website selling tickets to the club’s games and other Premier League matches to foreign tourists.

Boehly is a director and investor in Vivid Seats, an American site that allows users outside the United Kingdom to buy and sell tickets to concerts and sporting events, often at huge mark-ups. British fans cannot use the site or others like it because it is illegal to resell football tickets in this way in the UK. The Premier League lists Vivid Seats as an “unauthorised ticket website”.

Ahead of his new Dennis-Hopper-themed album, Scott answers your questions on jamming with Dylan, the magic of Ireland and why he’s had more than 80 bandmates

Why did your new album, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, take four years? VerulamiumParkRanger
I knew Dennis Hopper as the actor in Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now and Rebel Without a Cause, and that he stood for the counterculture, but I’d never done a deep dive. Ten years ago I saw his photos at the Royal Academy and realised he was also a brilliant photographer; I started reading biographies and checking out the movies I’d missed. Then I wrote a fun song about him, Hopper’s on Top (Genius), where every line rhymed with Hopper. I thought it would be great to do an EP, because his life was so colourful, but after some of my band members secretly recorded some instrumentals and suggested I put lyrics to them, I realised it could be an album of his life.

I started just before the pandemic but had all these other albums and box set projects, so I’d work intensely on Hopper then leave it and return with fresh ears. It has 25 songs. A friend of mine suggested I was doing too many voices myself – an American commentator, an old hippy and so on – and needed some guests. I used to love those Bruce Springsteen bootlegs where he’d do these incredible narratives at the end of the songs and thought, “If we could only get Bruce … ” He had come to a Waterboys gig in Dublin 10 years ago so there was a connection, and our manager asked his. Bruce did three takes for the song Ten Years Gone and sent all three. I got to pick between them. He did it so brilliantly and brought all the drama that I’d hoped he would.

Alexia Putellas and Irene Paredes tell trial how Hermoso wept on flight home to Spain from their World Cup victory

Teammates of Jenni Hermoso corroborated her account of being distraught and angered by the forced World Cup kiss from the former Spanish federation president Luis Rubiales when they testified at his sexual assault trial on Thursday.

Rubiales, who has yet to testify at the trial in Madrid, has previously claimed that Hermoso agreed to the kiss that took place during the awards ceremony after Spain won the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in Sydney. Hermoso testified on Monday that the kiss was unsolicited. She also said she was repeatedly pressured by Rubiales and his officials to say otherwise.

The Matildas star tells court she was commenting on ‘power and privilege’ of PC Stephen Lovell during heated exchange

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The Australia and Chelsea striker Sam Kerr has denied using “whiteness as an insult” in a heated exchange with police which saw her call one officer “stupid and white”.

The Matildas captain is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to PC Stephen Lovell during an incident in south-west London in the early hours of 30 January 2023.

Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump’s inauguration

News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.

Syrians were among the 11 killed during the attack in Örebro on Tuesday

People of several nationalities were among the 11 killed at a school in Sweden’s worst mass shooting, police have said.

Anna Bergqvist, who is leading the police investigation, said people of “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” were among those killed by a lone gunman at Campus Risbergska, an adult education centre, in the city of Örebro on Tuesday.

• Fin Smith at fly-half for England as Marcus shifts to 15
• Sleightholme replaces injured Murley on wing

Steve Borthwick has handed a first England start to the fly-half Fin Smith and shifted Marcus Smith to full-back as he seeks to end his side’s dismal run of form against France at Twickenham on Saturday. Tom Willis will also make a first start having been given the nod at No 8 while Ollie Sleightholme comes in for the injured Cadan Murley on the left wing.

Fin Smith, 22, has seven caps but all his appearances have been made from the bench to date. He played the final 16 minutes of last weekend’s 27-22 defeat by Ireland, with namesake Marcus moving to full-back, and Borthwick has rolled the dice and paired them together from the off for the visit of France. Jamie George is named among the replacements having missed last weekend’s defeat as England look to arrest a run of seven defeats in nine matches and keep their Six Nations title hopes alive.

A recent trip while walking the dog made me recheck my immense good fortune and my faith in the goodness of others

First things first: I tripped and fell – I did not, as my family teases, have a fall or, even more ridiculous, have a turn.

Here’s what happened.

As the Hollywood royal turns 80, we remember her greatest film roles that include an acting masterclass in Full Circle and a heartbreaking turn in The Purple Rose of Cairo

Like many a Hollywood star, Farrow took part in a 1970s disaster movie. In this Roger Corman production she’s in a love triangle with Rock Hudson, whose ski resort lies under an avalanche-prone mountain, and environmentalist Robert Forster, whose warnings are ignored. What happens next won’t surprise you.

Nobody beats you at being you, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Instead of trying to answer your inner critic, use your role and talents with responsibility

• Read more Leading questions

I’m a woman in my 40s. On paper, I’ve achieved everything I set out to accomplish. Some milestones took one or two attempts, while others came with surprising ease. I’m now a specialist in a sought-after field, hold an academic position at a university, and am married with a substantial mortgage.

And yet a persistent sense of inadequacy lingers. There’s always someone who seems to have achieved more – at least on paper. I often feel like an impostor, as if luck or connections were the real reasons I got here. When success required more than one attempt, I can’t shake the thought that I didn’t truly earn my place. If I really belonged, I tell myself, I would have succeeded on the first try.

Exclusive: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative workers express concern, as recent changes there similar to those at Meta

The for-profit charity organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan told employees last month that its commitment to corporate diversity is not changing even after Meta eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Employees of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) expressed concern in January after Meta’s top HR executive announced that that company would no longer put resources toward hiring and working with diverse and underrepresented job candidates and business suppliers (a suite of practices often referred to as DEI, for diversity, equity and inclusion), according to internal CZI messages viewed by the Guardian.

If the administration is embracing a multipolar world, does that mean the end of American primacy?

Many assumed that Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States would turn out like his first. But this time looks to be different. In his opening weeks, the US president has taken a flurry of actions he never attempted before, wielding sweeping tariffs against the US’s neighbors, upending portions of the federal workforce, and attempting to change constitutionally enshrined citizenship laws through executive order.

The early signs on foreign policy are no exception. In his inaugural address, Trump said next to nothing about the issues that have dominated US foreign policy for decades – matters of war and peace in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Instead, he spoke of expanding US territory in the western hemisphere (and going to Mars), harking back explicitly to the 19th-century tradition of manifest destiny. Astoundingly, Trump mentioned China solely for the purpose of accusing it, inaccurately, of operating the Panama Canal. When he turned beyond the Americas, Trump’s most telling line signaled restraint: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Actor says nose mistaken for prosthetic by new makeup artist: ‘I said, “That doesn’t come off!”’

A makeup artist on The Brutalist tried to remove Adrien Brody’s nose believing it to be a prosthetic, the actor has revealed.

Speaking to Jimmy Fallon earlier this week, Brody said that a new makeup artist began “busily working away with a solvent on my nose”.

A whole slew of dramas and plays mark half a century since her election as Tory leader. But there is too much gloss, when so many people are still suffering

Now she’s an opera. Yet another myth-making apotheosis lifts Margaret Thatcher to iconic realms, crafting for her an image recalling Elizabeth I. Historian Dominic Sandbrook is writing the libretto of her story, as one Thatcher tribute act trips over the next. This week saw James Graham’s Brian and Maggie drama about an interview that helped tip her towards her downfall. Next week, Radio 4 brings us When Larry met Maggie, Tim Walker’s play imagining scenes when Laurence Olivier coached the ingenue education secretary in the art of wooing and even seducing audiences.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Thatcher’s election as leader of her party. I started counting but lost track of the myriad actors who have played her, some of the greatest of our time. Harriet Walter was magnificent, as ever. So were Gillian Anderson and Meryl Streep. Lesley Manville was just as fine, as was Patricia Hodge, and I’m sure Frances Barber will be next week in Walker’s radio play. None but royalty of stage and screen are fit to play her.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

The rest of the world will look on in envy on Sunday as the US blends sport and music in a fashion no one else can match

If US high school romcoms have taught us anything, it’s that jocks don’t have anything in common with those who play band. Nor do they, typically, hang with the brooders, the sensitive souls who write waspish poetry and listen to indie music. And yet here we are: another Super Bowl, another year of romance. It shouldn’t work, not where so many other relationships have faltered. But this one is true love.

We’re not talking about Travis and Taylor, but NFL and the half-time show. This Sunday, when the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles, we once again bear witness to a perfect American marriage: the country’s biggest sporting event coupled with a live music gig so valuable to its megastar performers that they undertake it for free.

Police search for culprit in Antrim township heist as US egg prices continue to rise amid bird flu outbreak

Police in Pennsylvania are hunting for thieves who stole 100,000 eggs from the back of a trailer, amid a US-wide spike in the price of eggs that has triggered panic-buying in some shops.

The eggs were lifted from the back of Pete & Gerry’s Organics’ distribution trailer on Saturday at about 8.40pm in Antrim township, according to police. There have been no arrests yet.

A green belt circling the capital of Burkina Faso is preparing the country for the climate crisis

As far as the eye can see is a hodge-podge of trees, vegetable plots and water tanks. Up close it may look like a gigantic allotment, but this unusual project actually stretches for 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres), a green belt that now completely rings the city of Ouagadougou.

The green belt began life many years ago in the 1970s, with the aim of building a protective wall against the encroaching desert that lies beyond the greenery, just a few steps away. In Burkina Faso, one-third of the territory – about 9 million hectares of productive land – is degraded, with an estimated average degradation rate of 360,000 hectares per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Burkina Faso is not a climatically favoured country, but the drought of the 1980s exacerbated the problem, leading to significant population movements toward less degraded areas,” explains Sidnoma Abdoul Aziz Traoré, an environmental economist and expert in land degradation at the Centre Universitaire de Ziniaré (CUZ). But the situation, he says, is not irreversible.

Educators have been rushing to keep students safe and support anxious parents, as fear of deportation ramps up

As immigration officers moved in on Chicago following Donald Trump’s inauguration, carrying out the president’s plans for “mass deportations”, the city’s schools began to notice waves of absences.

Parents were picking up kids early, or parking a few blocks away – fearful immigration raids will target the pickup rush. In a city that has received thousands of new immigrant students in recent years, teachers made house calls to check in on families that were terrified of leaving their homes. At after-school programs for high-schoolers, educators passed out “know your rights” information for students to give to their undocumented parents.

• Austrian wins her first senior world title after superb run
• Vonn is making her return to elite skiing after time out

Austrian skier Stephanie Venier won the women’s super-G at the Alpine skiing world championships on Thursday but there was disappointment for Lindsey Vonn.

Federica Brignone of Italy finished 0.10 seconds behind Venier to take the silver medal, while Lauren Macuga of the United States and Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway shared bronzes, 0.24 off the lead.

Nissan looking for another partner to help shift to electric cars after tensions over perceived imbalance, says source

Nissan is preparing to pulling out of merger talks with Honda in order to try to find another partner to help with the shift towards electric vehicles.

The two Japanese automotive firms revealed in December that they were considering a £46bn merger, alongside Mitsubishi, to create the world’s third-largest carmaker in terms of annual sales. However, the talks have stuttered amid tensions over the perceived imbalance between the parties.

Saldaña says ‘never in a million years did I believe that we would be here’ amid Oscars storm over Emilia Pérez star’s Islamophobic social media posts

Zoe Saldaña has again responded to the controversy surrounding her Emilia Pérez co-star, Karla Sofía Gascón, who has been heavily criticised for offensive and Islamophobic social media posts.

The unearthing of these last week led to a considerable backlash for the star. Gascón has since deleted her X account and offered apologies, but has nonetheless been cold-shouldered by the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, who said on Wednesday that he had not spoken to her and didn’t want to, and its studio, Netflix.

One votes Conservative, the other Labour, and they disagreed on what should motivate MPs. Did they come any closer on Elon Musk or taxing cyclists?

Adam, 35, Blackpool

Occupation Accountant

Grenfell United says voices of bereaved have been ignored and they fear disaster could be ‘put out of mind’

The demolition of Grenfell Tower could mean that the injustice of the fatal fire is “put out of sight and out of mind” and forgotten, some survivors have said.

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, told a meeting on Wednesday that the 24-storey block in which 72 people were killed in June 2017 would be dismantled to ground level. The decision has prompted anger and claims that the government has failed to listen to the views of the bereaved and survivors.

US secretary of state repeats remarks by Donald Trump about ‘expropriation of private property’ in African nation

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has accused South Africa of “anti-Americanism” and refused to attend a G20 meeting in Johannesburg later this month, as diplomatic ties sour between the two countries under Donald Trump’s administration.

Rubio made the announcement on X, where he repeated the US president’s unfounded claim that South Africa was expropriating private property.

Concerns raised as $10bn Bezos Earth Fund halts funding for Science Based Targets initiative, which monitors companies’ decarbonisation

Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has halted its funding of one of the world’s most important climate certification organisations, amid broader concerns US billionaires are “bowing down to Trump” and his anti-climate action rhetoric.

The Bezos Earth Fund has stopped its support for the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an international body that assesses if companies are decarbonising in line with the Paris agreement. Earth Fund had been one of two core funders of the SBTi, with the Ikea Foundation: the two accounted for 61% of its total funding last year. Earth Fund’s decision was first reported by the FT.

Order comes after Donald Trump suggested US take over territory and resettle its residents elsewhere

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel’s defence minister has ordered the military to prepare plans to allow Palestinians “who wish to leave” Gaza to exit, after Donald Trump suggested the US take over the territory and resettle its residents in other countries.

Israel Katz said the military plan would include options to leave via land, air and sea. “The people of Gaza should have the right to freedom of movement and migration,” he said in a statement on X, although it was clear that the journeys would only be in one direction.

The conductor, 82, resigned from Berlin State Opera in 2023 but hopes to continue to conduct the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra when his health allows

The conductor Daniel Barenboim has revealed that he has Parkinson’s disease. The 82-year-old musician has been in failing health for some years, and in January 2023 resigned from his position as the general music director of the Berlin State Opera. Although increasingly frail, he has continued to make occasional appearances as a conductor, most recently in London with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the 2024 Proms and then at the Royal Festival Hall in November.

“I know that many people have been concerned about my health and I have been very touched by the support I have received over the last three years. I would like to share today that I have Parkinson’s disease,” he said in a statement released on Thursday. “Looking ahead, I am planning to maintain as many of my professional commitments as possible. If I am unable to perform, it is because my health does not allow me to.”

(Polydor)
The actor-singer’s solo debut proper looks to 1980s gay clubland for inspiration, but plays it too safe under all the retro synths and stammered-vocal effects

It isn’t melodramatic to say that Olly Alexander’s debut solo album comes at a crucial moment in his career. Four years ago, his ever-escalating success seemed assured: his brilliant performance as Ritchie, the lead character in Channel 4’s lockdown hit It’s a Sin, had been garlanded with award nominations; his band Years and Years, who had scored a string of huge hits in the 2010s, had been repurposed as his solo vehicle; and he was a star turn at the 2021 Brit awards, reclining on Elton John’s piano and singing the Pet Shop Boys song that gave the series its name, surrounded by drag queens and queer clubland luminaries.

But the subsequent Years and Years album, Night Call, met with a muted response – it wasn’t a flop, but nor was it anything like as successful as its two predecessors – and last year Alexander gamely entered a Eurovision song contest that became mired in controversy over the presence of Israel. His song wound up coming 18th, provoking yet another round of why-oh-why handwringing about the UK’s dismal record in the contest, in which the Daily Telegraph excelled itself, opining that Alexander’s performance failed because it was too gay, thus presumably upsetting the many viewers who annually tune into Eurovision expecting a feast of unreconstructed heterosexuality.

Latest quarter-point reduction comes with warning households face inflation of 3.7% by autumn

• Unambiguously bleak forecasts pave way for spending cuts
• What does the rate cut mean for mortgages and savings?
• Business live – latest updates

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 4.5%, as it halved its UK growth forecasts for the year and warned households would face renewed pressure from rising prices.

With the government under fire over the sluggish economy, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted by a majority of seven to two to reduce its key base rate, down from 4.75%, to provide some financial relief to borrowers.