While banning the burqa might play with the Sky After Dark audience, it is miles from a broad concern among punters
Nearly 30 years after she first entered politics with a firebrand maiden speech about Asian immigration, Pauline Hanson remains a committed fringe dweller, with narrow political interests and bad instincts.
Suspended from the Senate on Tuesday, her decision to don a burqa in the chamber a day earlier badly disrupted proceedings and drew near universal condemnation. It is only the fifth time since 1901 that a seven-day suspension has been put in place, and the first time since 1979.
From public service broadcasting to an independent judiciary, these are the things that we must fight to keep
How can we defend our democracies against those who would destroy them? We talk a lot about strategies for keeping anti-liberal, nationalist populists out of power, but Donald Trump’s daily wielding of a wrecking ball shows that it’s equally important to reinforce your democracy so it can withstand a period of populists in power.
Germany has a concept called wehrhafte Demokratie, often weirdly translated as “militant democracy” but actually meaning a democracy capable of defending itself. Under this motto, some in Germany are proposing to ban Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), now one of the most popular parties in the country. That’s the wrong way to go. It would only reinforce the far-right party’s supporters in their conviction that the democratic state itself is a kind of liberal elitist conspiracy, and impart to the AfD the nimbus of martyrdom. The French experiment of a “republican arc”, in which virtually all the other parties agree only on keeping out Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, is also visibly backfiring. Such a wide range of parties unsurprisingly fails to agree on urgently needed reforms and the National Rally can go on criticising from the sidelines. So it’s worth contemplating the example of the Netherlands, where the party of the inflammatory populist Geert Wilders was allowed into power in a coalition government, failed to deliver, brought that government down by withdrawing from the coalition, and lost the subsequent election (albeit only narrowly) to a liberal party led by the young, dynamic Rob Jetten.
Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist
Ten years ago Arsenal were thrashed by the Bavarian giants – now Mikel Arteta’s men are rated the best side in Europe
November 2015. The Allianz Arena, Munich. A decade ago, yet a lifetime away for Arsenal in the Champions League.
That night Arsène Wenger’s team were so shredded in a 5-1 defeat by Bayern Munich that my Guardian colleague David Hytner likened them to “the chicken feed from the lower reaches of the Bundesliga that Bayern routinely gobble up”. It was Arsenal’s joint‑worst result in Europe. And to rub it in, Bayern repeated the trick the following season. Twice: 5-1 at home, then 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium.
Players are being worn down by a cluttered calendar and lack of unity over their welfare from governing bodies
Elina Svitolina simply could not go on. Her hopeful start to the 2025 season had given way to despair as the mental and emotional strain of constant competition, travelling and stress left its mark. The 31-year-old understood that competing would only make things worse and, in September, Svitolina decided to prematurely end her season, citing burnout.
The world No 14 is not alone in feeling suffocated by her sport. This has been another year filled with incredible performances and gripping matches, but the past 11 months have also been defined by the physical and mental ailments endured by many of the sport’s stars.
Last-minute side trips the norm for travelling supporters in Bazball-era
Cricket Australia face $4m shortfall after first Ashes Test lasts two days
Regional centres are rolling out the red carpet to travelling England cricket supporters with newfound time on their hands, and last-minute side trips are becoming the norm for the Barmy Army as Bazball changes what it means to tour Australia.
Bleary-eyed in pyjamas in a new film, Jacinda Ardern’s pleas for compassion are hard to ignore. But in real crises, the fallibility of politicians can be terrifying
The camera catches Jacinda Ardern in her pyjamas, bleary-eyed with exhaustion. It follows her wiping crumbs off the worktops, breastfeeding, trying to take a phone call while simultaneously retrieving something her curious toddler has picked up off her desk. They are scenes many frazzled, distracted working parents will recognise, except that at the time she was the prime minister of New Zealand and these home movies – shot on her husband’s phone, originally for family consumption – have since been turned into a documentary premiering in British cinemas this December.
Prime Minister, the movie, is the latest step in Ardern’s campaign for politicians to be allowed to reclaim their humanity, which broadly means the public accepting that they are grappling with the same private pressures as the rest of us (and no doubt similarly making a hash of it at times). It was the message of her recent memoir, A Different Kind of Power, and in some ways of her time in office, made only more urgent lately by the avalanche of violent threats and abuse heaped on anyone in public life – as if by getting elected they had become instantly dehumanised.
The Alicante region is renowned for its rice and seafood dishes. Less well known is that its restaurant scene has a wealth of talented female chefs, a rarity in Spain
I’m on a quest in buzzy, beachy Alicante on the Costa Blanca to investigate the rice dishes the Valencian province is famed for, as well as explore the vast palm grove of nearby Elche. I start with a pilgrimage to a restaurant featured in my book on tapas, Andaluz, a mere 25 years ago. Mesón de Labradores in the pedestrianised old town is now engulfed by Italian eateries (so more pizza and pasta than paella) but it remains a comforting outpost of tradition and honest food.
Here I catch up with Timothy Denny, a British chef who relocated to Spain, gained an alicantina girlfriend and became a master of dishes from the region. Over a fideuá de mariscos (seafood noodles, €20), we chew over local gastronomy. “For me, Alicante epitomises the Mediterranean – for rice, seafood and artichokes,” he says. “But there are curiosities, too, like pavo borracho.” Tim explains that so-called “drunken turkeys” are cooked in vast amounts of cognac plus a shot of red wine and eventually emerge as a hefty stew, perfect in winter.
They wear Victorian dresses and make daring moves riding side-saddle. Photographer Constance Jaeggi on how she documented an all-female Mexican tradition
Project aims to unlock memories and sensations for participants while creating nine-track CD, recorded at Glyndebourne
On a stage once presided over by Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming, people living with dementia are recording songs of their own composition.
With the microphones of Glyndebourne opera house capturing every note, their voices rise and intertwine. Not echoing old, familiar tunes but shaping entirely new pieces expressing their feelings, hopes and fears – emotions that, when the music stops, their brains can no longer convey in mere words.
Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson are increasingly espousing Christian ‘values’, and a wealthy US legal group is becoming influential – this could have dire consequences
Earlier this year, not long after Tommy Robinson embraced evangelical Christianity while in prison, the thenConservative MP Danny Kruger spoke in parliament about the need for a restoration of Britain through the “recovery of a Christian politics”. Less than two months later, Kruger joined Reform, and shortly after that, James Orr, a vociferously conservative theologian who has been described as JD Vance’s “English philosopher king”, was appointed as one of Reform’s senior advisers. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, now frequently invokes the need for a return to “Judeo-Christian” values.
The British right is increasingly invoking the Christian tradition: the question is what it hopes to gain from doing so.
Lamorna Ash is the author of Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion
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The NHS has been directing pregnant women to a website that connected them to the Free Birth Society, an organisation that has been linked to baby deaths around the world after promoting labour without medical support.
A number of NHS trusts are directing women who are contemplating a “free birth” to a charity website that until Monday referred to FBS podcasts as a source of “empowering stories” that can help British women “preparing for their own birth”.
Ultimatums sent to publications appear to intensify as Nigel Farage’s party rises in polls
“It was Trumpian,” said Mark Mansfield, editor and CEO of Nation.Cymru, a small English-language Welsh news service. “It has perhaps given us a flavour of how a Reform UK government would behave towards the media.”
Mansfield is referring to what he described as an attempt by a figure at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party to “bully” his publication, but he believes a wider lesson might be learned.
A comforting bowl of soupy curry noodles that’s ready in well under an hour
As in many Japanese families, we had curry regularly when I was growing up. It was the standard Japanese curry of potatoes, onion, carrot and pork, usually thickened with S&B Golden Curry blocks. It made a weekly appearance in our house, and now I regularly make it for my own family, too. However, my kids are a little fussy: one likes it with tonkatsu on top and the other doesn’t want any meat at all. So I now make curry with no meat in it, and more vegetables, which means that I have to make only one version (and whoever wants to add tonkatsu can do so!).
This recipe is an edited extract from The Japanese Pantry, by Emiko Davies, published by Smith Street Books at £30.
The strikes come a day after a suicide attack on a security compound in Pakistan’s Peshawar city
Pakistan strikes on neighbouring Afghanistan have killed 10 people – among them nine children – a Taliban government spokesperson has said, a day after a suicide attack on a security compound in Pakistan’s Peshawar city.
“The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident ... As a result, nine children (five boys and four girls) and one woman were martyred” in Khost province, Zabihullah Mujahid said on X.
At Maple Farm, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. All due to the vision of a group determined to accelerate its recovery
The manically melodic song of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, but not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a single bird could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders, pointing to the woodland around us. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba, the group’s engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”
Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at Maple Farm, after just four years, the results are already visible, and audible. The farm used to be a retirement home for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so who could blame young people for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
It took some oblique wording, but Saudi Arabia made a last-minute decision to sign deal that marks departure for Cop
Dawn was breaking over the Amazonian city of Belém on Saturday morning, but in the windowless conference room it could have been day or night. They had been stuck there for more than 12 hours, dozens of ministers representing 17 groups of countries, from the poorest on the planet to the richest, urged by the Brazilian hosts to accept a settlement cooked up the day before.
Tempers were short, the air thick as the sweaty and exhausted delegates faced up to reality: there would not be a deal here in Brazil. The 30th UN climate conference would end in abject failure.
Still largely viewed as a peaceful philosophy, across much of south-east Asia, the religion has been weaponised to serve nationalist goals
In the summer of 2023, I arrived in Dharamshala, an Indian town celebrated as the home of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader. The place hadn’t changed much since my last visit almost two decades ago. The roads were still a patchwork of uneven asphalt and dirt, and Tibetan monks in maroon robes filled the streets. Despite the relentless hum of traffic, Dharamshala had a rare stillness. The hills seemed to absorb the noise. Prayer flags flickered in the breeze, each rustle a reminder of something enduring.
But beneath the surface, the Buddhism practised across Asia has shifted. While still widely followed as a peaceful, nonviolent philosophy, it has been weaponised, in some quarters, in the service of nationalism, and in support of governments embracing a global trend toward majoritarianism and autocracy.
Alexis Tsipras says that during debt crisis Yanis Varoufakis was more interested in promoting his books
Yanis Varoufakis, the firebrand economist who rose to fame at the height of Greece’s debt drama, was not only egotistical but ultimately more interested in testing out his game theories on the nation than winning its battle to keep afloat.
So writes the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in his newly released memoir, Ithaki, as the once radical leftwing leader, sparing no punches, seeks, 10 years later, to put the record straight.
The 24-year-old was found dead in the early morning hours of 6 November hours after being pursued by officers who had attempted a traffic stop in suburban Dallas. Police say Kneeland took his own life.
Pauline Hanson has been censured by the Senate and suspended from the chamber for seven days after her burqa stunt and will be barred from representing the parliament in overseas delegations.
In an overwhelming show of opposition to the repeat of her 2017 stunt, members of Labor, the Coalition, the Greens and crossbench voted for the censure motion. Only Hanson, her three fellow One Nation senators, and United Australia senator Ralph Babet opposed it.
King has announced a genealogist working with the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds found no evidence of Cherokee ancestry in his family lineage
A prominent Canadian-American author, who has long claimed Indigenous ancestry and whose work exposed “the hard truths of the injustices of the Indigenous peoples of North America”, has learned from a genealogist that he has no Cherokee ancestry.
In an essay titled “A most inconvenient Indian” published on Monday for Canada’s Globe and Mail, Thomas King said he had learned of rumours circulating in recent years within both the arts and Indigenous communities that questioned his Cherokee heritage.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and Xi told Trump that its return was an ‘integral part of the post-war international order’
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told Donald Trump that Beijing’s claims to Taiwan remain unchanged, in a phone call that came amid rising tensions over the self-governing island.
Xi told Trump on Monday that Taiwan’s return to China was an “integral part of the postwar international order” forged in the joint US-China fight against “fascism and militarism”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Her commitment to food directly connected to its source shaped the tastes and thinking of a generation of cooks. We all wanted to sit next to her at dinner
Spring is a season of transition, when bare earth transforms into something alive with promise. It was also the name chef Skye Gyngell, who has died at age 62, chose for her London restaurant. She said it was her favourite season, but the truth is she embraced all four and lived them wholly.
Gyngell was singular: she had the palate of a chef and the palette of an artist. Those twin gifts met in food that was painterly in its composition, delicate in its details and tuned to nature’s shifting notes.
Connexion
