Rooney claims ‘Wagatha Christie’ battle left her with legal bill of more than £1.8m, a total disputed by Vardy’s team

The long-running legal feud between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy has inched closer to its end, with Vardy agreeing to pay almost £1.2m of Rooney’s legal costs.

But the high-profile Wagatha Christie libel battle is not yet finished, a judge has been told, with Vardy still resisting payment of a further £300,000.

California governor Gavin Newsom announces a $7.5bn tax incentive scheme as Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on films ‘produced in foreign lands’ is mocked by Jimmy Kimmel and Fallon

Donald Trump appears to be softening his tone after widespread dismay in Hollywood and further afield at his bombshell announcement of 100% tariffs on films “produced in foreign lands”, saying he was “not looking to hurt the industry”.

In remarks reported by CNBC, Trump said he was planning to discuss the plan with film industry leaders. “I’m not looking to hurt the industry, I want to help the industry.”

Applicants will be targeted by Home Office due to suspicions they are most likely to overstay and claim asylum

• UK politics live – latest updates

Nigerians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans applying to work or study in the UK face Home Office restrictions over suspicions that they are most likely to overstay and claim asylum, Whitehall officials have claimed.

The government is working with the National Crime Agency to build models to profile applicants from these countries who are likely to go on to claim asylum.

The Trump administration’s funding cuts to the NIH could destroy a wave of approaching research breakthroughs

Since Robert F Kennedy Jr assumed control of the US health department in February, with a mandate to “[lower] chronic disease rates and [end] childhood chronic disease”, he has moved quickly to remake the US’s federal health infrastructure. But the Trump administration’s actions on medical research are already threatening that goal – and could end medical progress in this country for good.

Kennedy’s office oversees the National Institutes of Health, the control center of disease research in the United States. Kennedy’s agency has killed almost 800 active projects, according to Nature, affecting medical research into HIV/Aids, diabetes, women’s health, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and more. The administration wants to cut the NIH’s budget up to 40% while consolidating its 27 agencies – separated by disease area – into just eight. Elon Musk’s Doge has been reviewing previously awarded grant funding, reportedly requiring researchers to explain how they are using their grants to advance the Trump administration’s political goals. (Audio obtained by the Washington Post suggests this “Defend the Spend” initiative may be a smokescreen, with one NIH official admitting: “All funding is on hold.”) Separately, Donald Trump has aggressively targeted universities such as Harvard and Columbia over alleged antisemitism and diversity initiatives, using federal contracts that fund research as leverage. And just recently, the NIH passed a new rule banning any university from receiving future federal grants if the universities use DEI programs or boycott Israeli firms.

With tipping reported at self-checkouts, drive-throughs and even vending machines, some consumers are pushing back

When Garrett Petters, a 29-year-old architect in Dallas, and his girlfriend travelled to Paris last year, one of their favourite parts was eating out. They enjoyed French duck, andouillette, plenty of bread, cheese and coffee and even escargot.

But it wasn’t just Paris’s cuisine they admired. It was also the different tipping culture. “We were talking about how nice it is in Europe that they pay their waiters and waitresses and we don’t have to tip because of it, and isn’t that cool,” Petters said. It felt very different from back in the US, where tipping culture felt “out of control”.

After two performances were cancelled over threats linked to protests against Israel, the duo said the actions were ‘self-evidently a method of censorship’

After the cancellation of two UK performances with the Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has said that they “dread the weaponisation of this cancellation by reactionary figures as much as we lament its celebration by some progressives”.

In a statement, Greenwood and Tassa said that venues in London and Bristol as well as “their blameless staff” had received enough credible threats to conclude that it was not safe to proceed with the gigs.

Our cartoonist on intense motivational techniques and banter in north London before European semi-finals

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• Owen Jenner and Shane Richardson died at Oulton Park
• Fellow riders pay tribute on ‘black day for motor sport’

Police have launched an investigation into the deaths of two motorcyclists who were killed during a horrific “chain reaction” crash involving 11 riders during a British Superbikes event on Monday.

Owen Jenner, 21, and Shane Richardson, 29, sustained fatal injuries after a pile-up during the first corner of the race at Oulton Park in Cheshire.

Head coach must decide if his son commands a place, the back-row blend and whether a left-field pick is required

As Andy Farrell prepares to name his British & Irish Lions touring squad it is worth reflecting on the events of 12 years ago. Then as now, the destination was Australia and Farrell was an important cog in Warren Gatland’s management team. It was also the last time the Lions actually won a series, the solitary occasion they have ticked that illustrious box this century.

And do you remember who, ultimately, made the difference in the all-important final Test in Sydney, with the best-of-three series poised at 1-1? None other than the strong-scrummaging Alex Corbisiero, who had been omitted from the original squad and owed his presence to an ankle injury sustained by Ireland’s Cian Healy early in the tour.

El Salvador’s populist leader extols a hardline approach to crime and an assault on civil society – drawing envy from many in the Trump administration

“I have no doubt the government are watching,” said Ingrid Escobar, an activist lawyer who has proved a thorn in the side of El Salvador’s authorities. “There are cars that follow me – I have them identified.”

Since president Nayib Bukele launched a sweeping crackdown on gangs, Escobar has advocated for the tens of thousands locked up without due process. She points to a photo of Geovanni Aguirre, a childhood friend and trade unionist who worked in San Salvador’s mayor’s office. He disappeared into the prison system in 2022.

Paul Haggis’s interconnected drama about racism in Los Angeles remains one of the most embarrassing Oscar decisions ever made

It doesn’t take long for Paul Haggis’s Crash to end up on the shortest of shortlists for the worst film ever to win best picture at the Oscars, maybe the single worst in the color era since 1954’s Around the World in 80 Days. At the time, it was a dark-horse favorite to upset the widely acclaimed Brokeback Mountain, premiering a full year earlier at the Toronto film festival before riding an unexpected cultural wave to awards-season glory. Now 20 years later, it feels like a “you had to be there” moment that’s hard to explain, because the movie itself is so obviously rancid that it suggests few answers on its own. The job is probably better suited to cultural anthropologists than film critics.

Nonetheless, Haggis’s ensemble piece about racial animus in Los Angeles seems to have struck a chord with, well, the many Academy voters from Los Angeles who reside in that lumpy melting pot. Haggis was also capitalizing on the everything-is-connected trend in arthouse screenwriting, pulling off a clunkier version of the narrative engineering that brought films such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros to life. By linking a little over a day’s worth of incidents together, Haggis seized on the potentially powerful idea of racism as a viral scourge in the city, infecting everyone it touches. Instead it plays like a po-faced cover of the Avenue Q hit Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.

Cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the process of electing a pontiff

Cardinals will begin voting to elect a new pope in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. How does it work?

‘No sense’ in considering new truce proposals, says group, hours after Israel agrees plan for ‘conquest’ of territory

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Hamas has said it is no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, hours after Israeli officials agreed an intensified offensive in the devastated territory that would involve displacing “most” of its residents and a sustained Israeli military presence.

“There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.

First they had to give birth in custody, then their babies were taken away. Sometimes they never got them back. Here’s what 29 women told the Lost Mothers Project

One by one, 29 women sat before Dr Laura Abbott in similarly small, nondescript rooms across five UK prisons, and described losing their babies. They were not bereaved in the conventional sense – although they were clearly holding in grief, as once the guards had left, they let rare public tears fall. Prisoners who had given birth in custody, they had been separated from their newborn children. In some cases this had happened within four or five days of becoming mothers.

“It was worse than giving birth,” said one woman. “That was the hardest pain of my life. I’ve never felt pain like it … It was in my chest, in my heart. Even in my belly.”

As Israel’s aid blockade continues and humanitarian zones disappear, there is talk of a ‘second Nakba’ being realised

Like so many others across the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Hakimi felt a weight lift from his shoulders for the first time in over a year when Israel and Hamas agreed a long-delayed ceasefire in January.

He cried and hugged his five children tightly. “I slept deeply, free from the sound of bombing, destruction and death,” he said.

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer won final grand slam titles at the same age. The odds of beating that mark seem long, but the Serbian has always been ruthlessly determined

On a clear September New York evening in 1981, following a soul crushing loss to John McEnroe in the US Open final for the second consecutive year, Björn Borg disappeared into the night and vanished from the sport. He was only 25. He had accumulated an extraordinary 11 grand slam titles by then, but it left one to wonder how many more championships he could have amassed had he not retired so young. His conqueror that day had a much longer career and played until he was 33. But McEnroe, like Borg, won his last grand slam singles title at 25.

Back in those old days of the first phase of Open tennis (which I’ll date from 1968-1985; most of the top pros didn’t start playing the Australian Open regularly until the mid-1980s), players reached their peaks in their mid-20s and winning majors as one approached 30 was considered unusual.

Vibe at meeting could hint at future relationship between the two countries and their two leaders

• US politics – Live updates

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was due to meet with US president, Donald Trump, on Tuesday in a closely watched encounter at the White House that could hint at the future relationship between the two countries and their two leaders.

Over the weekend, Trump said it was “highly unlikely” he would use military force to annex Canada, a key trading partner and political ally. In recent months, the president has repeatedly threatened to use economic coercion to weaken Canada to the point that it accedes to Trump’s wish to make it the 51st state.

Because of the blockade, hunger is part of our daily reality now. It is deep and cruel, and there is no relief

It has been more than 30 hours since I last ate. At times, I go as long as two days without food. For most people around the world, the word hunger is a fleeting feeling, easily fixed with a trip to the kitchen or a nearby store. Saying “I’m hungry” is routine, almost meaningless. But imagine if every time you felt hungry, there was nothing to eat – no food, no relief, just emptiness. This has been my daily reality in the Gaza Strip for over a month.

Since the beginning of the war, the Israeli occupation has controlled the quantity and type of food allowed into Gaza. When a ceasefire was agreed, I hoped that everything I had endured was behind me. I held on to the hope of a better life, convinced that hunger would become something in my past. But just as I began to regain my health, the bombing and destruction returned – and with them, the starvation.

Aya Al-Hattab is a writer in Gaza

• Spanish club want to bring forward right-back’s transfer
• Madrid play at tournament before his contract ends

Real Madrid have approached Liverpool in an attempt to bring forward the signing of Trent Alexander-Arnold so that he is available to play in the Club World Cup, which starts on 14 June in the United States. The right-back is set to join the Spanish side when his contract expires at the end of June but Madrid are eager to take him earlier.

Any agreement would lead to Liverpool receiving a fee. Fifa has implemented a two-window summer to benefit those playing at the Club World Cup, with the first lasting from 1 to 10 June and the second opening on 16 June. Madrid’s first fixture is on 18 June against Al-Hilal at the Hard Rock Cafe Stadium in Miami.

The US president’s bizarre talk of 100% levies on films from ‘foreign lands’ combines trolling with a hazy grasp of facts

Another day, another bizarre, mischievous, headline-hogging pronouncement from the US president.

Steve Bannon famously advised him to flood the zone with shit – a Maga-Maoist permanent revolution of provocative, toxic nonsense. Trump is flooding the zone with tariffs, then he pauses, walks back and climbs down on tariffs, and then adds more tariffs. The latest is his bizarre plan to hit movies made in “foreign lands” with 100% tariffs. He has solemnly announced his grave concern that Hollywood was “dying” at the hands of foreigners like the UK, who give tax breaks to multinationals.

A mixed-race musician is drawn into the unfamiliar milieu of an upper-class family in this plotty debut

The unnamed narrator of William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel, a mixed-race aspiring musician from Manchester, is plunged into an unfamiliar milieu when his posh university friend, Lily, invites him to spend a summer at her parents’ chateau in the French countryside. There’s an undercurrent of unease – at one point he is mistaken for staff – but the family are welcoming. Lily’s bisexual brother, Felix, a handsome actor and enfant terrible who has just emerged from a stint in the Priory, is especially friendly. A relationship develops, which brings perks for the narrator: Felix’s father gives him a cushy job at his property firm, and his mother promises to pull strings and get him an audition with the Royal Academy. It all seems too good to last – and so it proves.

Sunstruck is a story about identity and belonging. The protagonist had hung out with goth kids at school; his black best friend, Jasmine, teasingly nicknames him “WhiteBoy” because he is so out of touch with black pop culture. But when the action moves to London in the second half of the novel, and particularly after a black friend of Jasmine’s is badly beaten up by police at the Notting Hill carnival, a racial consciousness gradually awakens within him. He suspects that he’ll never be truly accepted in Felix’s world, and their relationship is troublingly imbalanced. Yet he can’t quite tear himself away: “The intoxicating sense of belonging, of moving through a space I didn’t know existed … this is something I cannot give up.”

Documentary investigates the whereabouts of the model who played an influential corporate character, as well as the relationship between race and technology

Back when computers were still new, Mavis Beacon was an icon for generations of children learning IT skills. Her name, along with the accompanying image of a smiling, suited Black woman, graced countless editions of some popular software that taught typing through interactive lessons and games. For Black students, to see someone who looked like them in a position of authority and knowledge, inspired assurance and aspiration. Mavis Beacon, however, did not exist; she was a fictional character represented by a photograph of Renée L’Espérance, a Haitian model whose story is now lost to history. Eager to reclaim her legacy, film-maker Jazmin Jones and collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross embarked on a years-long quest to track down the woman behind the image.

The resulting documentary is anything but conventional. Describing themselves as “E-girl detectives”, Jones and Ross draw on a wide variety of sources for their investigation. In addition to a physical headquarters – complete with an evidence board not unlike those seen in detective films of yore – there is a virtual dimension to their pursuit. We see what presumably is the cybersleuths’ desktop screen, on which memes, Google maps and search results multiply like mushrooms after the rain.

We would like to hear about how the costs of festivals might have affected your plans

Festival season is upon us, and ticket prices are as high as ever. The most basic Glastonbury tickets are £378, with coach tickets on top anywhere between £60 and £160. Meanwhile Latitude starts at £308, and even day festivals such as Field Day can exceed £80.

With this in mind, we would like to hear about how the costs of festivals might have affected your plans. Do you save up for festival season, or take out a loan? Do you go as a volunteer? Or has the cost of festivals got so high you can’t go any more?

We’d like to hear from small business owners in the UK and elsewhere about any impact of changing tariffs

China has raised tariffs on US imports to 125% in an escalation of the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

US tariffs on Chinese goods now total 145%, while most other countries, including the UK, have maintained a 10% tariff on goods following Donald Trump’s announcements on Wednesday pausing “reciprocal” tariffs for 90 days.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Trump’s foreign film tariffs could ‘wipe out’ UK movie industry, ministers told

Car sales across the UK fell by over 10% last month, compared to a year ago.

New industry data shows that 120,331 new vehicles were registered in April, 10.4% fewer than in April 2024.

In what is traditionally a quieter month following the March plate change, volumes were also impacted by the late timing of Easter, resulting in fewer working days.

In addition, the implementation of VED changes affecting all new cars, including the Expensive Car Supplement which became applicable to many new EVs from 1 April, pushed transactions into March as shrewd buyers got ahead of the tax increases.

Timing of next vote unclear in process that had been expected to anoint CDU/CSU leader to replace outgoing Olaf Scholz

• Merz suffers shock defeat in German parliament vote for chancellor

For what it’s worth, multiple German media are now suggesting that there won’t be another round of voting today – exactly because Merz and his team worry about the risk of another hugely embarrassing defeat.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bild and Stern’s Julias Betschka all say the second vote is unlikely to take place today. Let’s wait for the official confirmation, though.

Ian Wilkinson, whose wife was among three who died, tells Victorian court the triple murder accused ‘just seemed like a normal person to me’

• Who are Erin Patterson and the other key figures in Australia’s mushroom murders trial?

The only surviving guest of the beef wellington lunch at Erin Patterson’s house has told her triple murder trial he was happy and excited about being invited for the meal.

Ian Wilkinson, the pastor at the Korumburra Baptist church, is the sixth witness in the supreme court trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell.

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Carmaker Ford says tariffs will cost it about $1.5bn this year as toymaker says it will reduce imports from China

• Business live – latest updates

Barbie maker Mattel has said it will increase prices for some products in the US as Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs bump up costs for the toymaker.

The US represents about half of Mattel’s global toy sales, and the company imports about 20% of its goods sold in the country from China. Mattel said it would reduce imports into the US from China to below 15% by 2026.

Booing and flashpoints are commonplace in a sport further along on a journey that others are taking to varying degrees

Let me tell you the moment I realised Boris Johnson was fucked. It was late 2021 and there had been some talk about parties in Downing Street during Covid, but in these febrile siloed times, when the entirety of human existence has blurred into a single personalised scrolling feed, who even knows what constitutes “the news” any more? Who knows what fragments of reality ever emerge from Westminster’s furiously spinning vortex of unintelligible jargon: prorogue, backstop, Aukus, Slapps? What is a Morgan McSweeney and what time does it start?

But then came the magical night, a few days before Christmas, when the darts crowd turned. As Florian Hempel swept to a routine first-round win against Martin Schindler (bit of an upset, to be honest, but you never write off Flo at the Palace), Alexandra Palace rocked to strains of “Boris is a cunt”. Fans held up signs reading “Work Event”, drew pictures of cheese and wine and gleefully held them up to the cameras. And you realise, with a piercing we’ve-lost-Cronkite clarity: oh wow, he’s fucked.

Riyad Mahrez and Roberto Firmino starred in tournament but unbalanced format reflects political power in continent

It’s been quite a journey for Roberto Firmino, Riyad Mahrez and Al-Ahli, who lifted the AFC Champions League Elite trophy for the first time just before midnight on Saturday in front of 60,000 fans in Jeddah after a 2-0 win over Kawasaki Frontale of Japan.

Firmino has not been registered in the Saudi Pro League (SPL), where teams are allowed only 10 foreign players, this year. The former Liverpool man’s spot was taken by Galeno, his fellow Brazilian signed from Porto in January for around £45m. In Asia, however, there are no such restrictions and “Bobby” has come back into the fold and played so well that he was named tournament’s MVP.

Co-founder and CEO Will Shu in line for a £172m payout and staff will receive nearly £66m from deal

• Business live – latest updates

The food delivery company Deliveroo has agreed a £2.9bn takeover by its US rival DoorDash that will result in a near-£66m payday for its staff.

The London-based delivery company, which was founded in 2013 by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski, received an offer worth 180p a share last month and on Tuesday its board recommended the deal to shareholders.

Loud explosions reported at dawn and plumes of smoke as RSF targets Sudanese government’s seat of power

Drones have struck the airport and targeted an army base in Port Sudan, officials said, the third straight day the seat of power of the government, which is aligned with the Sudanese army, has come under attack.

The country’s main fuel depot was hit on Monday, causing a massive blaze just south of the eastern city that had until Sunday been considered a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of displaced people fleeing a two-year war.

A definitive new biography takes in adventures on the Mississippi, racist stereotypes and get-rich-quick schemes

In his lifetime, Mark Twain was the greatest literary celebrity the world had ever known. In the US, he hobnobbed with presidents; on his many travels, he would dine privately with the German kaiser, the Austrian emperor, or the Prince of Wales. Visiting England to collect an honorary degree from Oxford University, he was cheered off his ship by the stevedores of the London docks, before making his way to Windsor Castle for tea with the king and queen.

He was the bracing, irreverently humorous voice of America. Like Charles Dickens, whom he heard read from his own work in New York, he became a performer as well as an author. In London he was feted when he read passages from his travelogue of the Wild West, Roughing It. Everyone loved the “twang of his drawl”. He went on to take his work in progress, Huckleberry Finn, round more than 100 American towns and cities, earning handsomely.

Saved from tourist development by a ‘favourite daughter of Andalucía’, Cabo de Gata is a spectacular national park perfect for an adventure on foot

If you study a map of Spain, in the south-east corner you’ll see a strip of empty space along the edge of the Mediterranean. It contains no major towns and barely any roads. Its coastline is equally barren – no ports or resorts; just a few tiny villages tucked away in intriguingly named coves – “raven”, “coal”, “bitter water”. This patch of emptiness is the Cabo de Gata-Níjar national park, a protected haven of desert wilderness on the edge of Europe.

Having been forced to cancel an expedition to the Algerian Sahara earlier in the year, this park appears to be the answer to my yearning for the arid warmth and stark beauty of desert travel. Zooming in on the satellite view, a network of paths appears, suggesting a walking route of around 40 miles (64km) – from the Cabo itself, up the coast, along the cliffs, to the beach town of Agua Amarga. My husband, a keen Iberophile and relentless explorer of España vacia (literally, empty Spain) is always up for a wilderness adventure, so we get in the van and head south.

Saint John boasts Canada’s largest oil refinery – and a huge gulf between rich and poor. Chris Donovan captured life in a city overshadowed by pollution

Nick Cave and Richard Ayoade are among those reading out the posthumously discovered missives that inspired an album by Emilíana Torrini, who soundtracks this gorgeous film

You’d be forgiven for not having heard of Geraldine Flower, the subject of A new film from artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the pair behind the 2014 Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth. (Cave makes an appearance here reading a letter or two.) Flower was not famous in her lifetime and in fact, after watching the film we’re none the wiser about how she spent her later years. But when she died in 2019, a suitcase packed with hundreds of love letters written to her by smitten men in the 60s and 70s was found in her London flat.

The letters inspired a 2024 album by Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana Torrini (called Miss Flower) and also this intriguing, gorgeous and creative documentary – a film somewhere between an installation with songs and an extended music promo. It features Torrini and her band performing songs from the album, some dramatised scenes (actor Caroline Catz plays Flower), plus a bit of modern dance. This description makes it sound like art school navel gazing, but while it can be mildly frustrating, The Extraordinary Miss Flower is a real pleasure: luxuriant like a good glass of red wine. Partly that’s down to the songs, vivacious pop-electronica numbers sung with seductive intimacy by Torrini, who is pretty extraordinary herself.

The picture is complex, experts say, despite two resounding wins for liberal parties in national elections, after polls had put them on track for defeat

Pierre Poilievre and Peter Dutton began the year as leaders in waiting. With national elections in Canada and Australia on the horizon, both leaders were consistently leading in the polls. But a mere four months later, the votes have come and gone and their parties remain out of government. In the process, both suffered the indignation of losing the seats they held for more than two decades.

On Sunday, as the results of the Australian elections were broadcast across the world, international media were quick to blame one man: Donald Trump. “First Canada, now Australia?” asked the Wall Street Journal, with the paper claiming the “Trump factor” had boosted Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese’s chances. CNN called it “the Trump slump” and suggested the phenomenon was spreading.

Hundreds of women forced to confess to ‘moral crimes’ they did not commit have been publicly lashed in Afghanistan

Three Afghan women who were brutally flogged in public by the Taliban after being accused of “moral crimes” have bravely spoken out about the cruelty they endured.

More than 1,000 people – at least 200 of whom were women – are now known to have been humiliated in public floggings since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, according to court records and media reports. The true numbers are probably much higher.

Researchers call for urgent action as fragments of plastic found in human brains and pollute food, water and air

The UK is falling behind on international efforts to tackle microplastics, scientists have said, as the pollutants continue to infiltrate food, ecosystems and human bodies.

The tiny fragments of plastic have been found in human testicles and brains, and they burrow into plants, inhibiting their ability to photosynthesise. The impact on human health is largely unknown, but they have been linked to strokes and heart attacks.

Rapid, highly visible action in communities and a forthright attack on the new right – that is what’s needed now

If you thought these elections were bad, just wait for the locals next May. Expect far worse for Labour, unless they act fast. As they tussle over which way to turn, left or right, stop and consider what’s ahead. They will be challenged by Reform UK in towns such as Barnsley, while their progressive city heartlands will be ravaged by Greens, Liberal Democrats, and pro-Palestine and other independents. Expect shocks in London boroughs that have been forever Labour. (Worth recalling that amid Labour’s landslide, Keir Starmer’s vote share in Holborn and St Pancras dropped by 17% in the general election when challenged by a pro-wealth tax radical.) With council elections in a third of seats in English cities, expect an eruption of local leftward rebellions.

Those around Starmer may well be misidentifying the threat that matters most. Heavy vote losses to Lib Dems and Greens in a general election would cost Labour twice as many seats as the same number of votes lost to Reform. Analysis by Persuasion UK finds 123 seats vulnerable to Reform switchers, but 250 Labour seats at risk from flight to progressive parties. While 11% of Labour voters are “Reform-curious”, 29% would consider voting Green and 41% would consider supporting the Lib Dems.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist