Trade unions write to home secretary to complain about officers’ behaviour and tactics in London on 18 January

The Met police is facing growing questions over its handling of a pro-Palestine protest in central London at which more than 70 people were arrested.

On Friday, trade union leaders became the latest group to write to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, demanding an independent inquiry into “repressive and heavy-handed policing” at the 18 January demonstration.

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© Photograph: Isabel Infantes/Reuters

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© Photograph: Isabel Infantes/Reuters

The Home Office has some good ideas, but a documentary on knife crime by the actor offers the template for a new approach

The list of painful questions left behind for a wounded Britain by the trauma of the Southport stabbings is a long one. It starts with asking why Axel Rudakubana, jailed last week with a 52-year minimum prison sentence, did it. But that soon segues into wider issues of statecraft and policy. In particular, it asks whether there are measures we could now take that might, just possibly, contribute to stopping some future Rudakubana from doing the same thing.

Here the issues become more substantive. Problems of family support and parenting. The too ready availability of knives. The influence of social media. The impact of poverty. The role of schools and of exclusions. The place of policing. The repercussion of imprisonment. The effectiveness of youth services. The relevance, if any, of ideology. All these, and more. And they are merely subject headings, the doors to more detailed responses.

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© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

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© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

After chronicling the crack boom of the 1980s as an investigative reporter, he had a high-profile but brief second career in Hollywood.

© Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun — Tribune News Service, via Getty Images