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Brown is said to be driven by moral anger but insiders suggest he may feel guilty for bringing Peter Mandelson back into government
Before Gordon Brown sent a draft of his 6 February comment piece on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to the Guardian for publication, he asked friends whether he had gone too far.
The former prime minister had written that he found it “hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics” and the “time is overdue to let in the light”.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 06:00:03 GMT
After a decade at the top, the Bake Off winner is reclaiming her career and refusing to soften her edges. She discusses racism, gaslighting – and why comfort food is more important than ever
In a food world where the trend is for protein and weight-loss injections and sugar is the supervillain, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts seems somewhat contrary. There are golden syrup dumplings. There is a chapter devoted to deep frying, with cheese balls and ingenious deep-fried cannelloni.
“If I could write an entire book on deep frying, I absolutely would,” says Hussain with a laugh. “This is how I cook, this is how I eat, this is how I show love to my family. Everything in there is stuff that my kids absolutely love.” It’s about balance, she says – there are also lovely recipes for soothing plant-based dal and delicious noodles – because “I think anything that’s an extreme version of itself is dangerous”.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:00:03 GMT
By failing to remove John Davidson’s tic from the broadcast, editors let down both black and disabled people
I attended the Bafta awards on Sunday. And I arrived early enough to hear the Tourette syndrome (TS) campaigner John Davidson, on whom the biographical film I Swear is based, be introduced. He stood up to wave and take in the applause, and we were told that due to his TS, we might expect to hear involuntary vocal outbursts, known as tics, and that we should understand that the Baftas are an inclusive space in which all people are welcome.
Perhaps half the people were listening, others would have been on their phones or engaged in mild chatter. But the tics were instantly audible. When the host, Alan Cumming, was on stage we heard “boring” and there was laughter. When the outgoing chair of Bafta, Sara Putt, was speaking, we heard “shut the fuck up” and there was a mix of knowing silence and confusion. But, as you all now know, it was when Sinners actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented an award that the tics transmuted from things that would be read as benignly antisocial to more outright offensive, as we heard the N-word. There were gasps and whispers of “did he just say … ?”
Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian
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Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:00:04 GMT
In 1990, Gary Williamson was 18, backpacking in Europe, when his vision began to fail. It was the start of a perilous journey
The first sign that something was wrong was the blurred text in the book Gary Williamson was reading. The problem with his vision had come on suddenly – the day before, it had been normal. Williamson thought perhaps he was tired, or run down. He was 18 and had arrived in Gibraltar after travelling through Europe for two weeks, sleeping rough and not eating or drinking properly. “I’ll go and get some water and something to eat. I thought: maybe it’s nothing. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. The next day, I woke up and it was bad again.” He remembers cautiously getting out his book to test his eyesight: “It’s actually getting worse. I can’t read it now. The lines were starting to blur.” He had relied on a map to get him that far. “I remember thinking: that’s going to become useless very soon. I need to work out what I’m doing.” He needed to get home.
It was 1990, and Williamson didn’t think to call home to ask for help. With no money left – he had made it to Gibraltar four days earlier with the intention to find work – he decided to hitch a lift, thinking a UK-bound lorry would be his best bet. He made it to the gates where the haulage lorries left the port, threw down his backpack by the side of the road and waited. None of the lorries stopped to pick him up. He was, he says, “panicking a little bit, thinking: what do I do? It was harder than I thought it was going to be.” Around 6pm, he gave up. He went back to where he had been sleeping, on a patch of sandy ground behind a sandwich stall over the Spanish border. Before he went to sleep, he wished that he would get a lift the next day, and that his eyesight wouldn’t be any worse. When he woke up, it was.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:00:03 GMT
Tate Modern, London
Forget the sex and drugs of the 90s. This wildly emotional exhibition shows that Emin’s life’s work has been turning suffering into sculpture, insults into poetry – and agony into art
It feels as if you’re intruding. Walking into Tate Modern’s huge Tracey Emin retrospective is like walking in on her crying, naked, sobbing and snotty, as if you have stumbled into something painfully private.
That’s not an easy thing to pull off in the cavernous spaces of our leading contemporary art institution, but that’s what makes Tracey – it doesn’t feel right calling her Emin, she pulls you so close it’s like you know her, it’s Tracey isn’t it? – such a special, important, era-defining artist.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:00:07 GMT
BNPL can be a fee-free way to manage cashflow for an essential purchase but keep track of the payment schedule
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a form of credit that lets you spread payments for everything from clothes, jewellery and white goods to concert tickets, hotel rooms and takeaway meals.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:00:04 GMT
In the past five years, MPs’ attitudes in the House of Commons towards immigration have swung harder to the right than at almost any other time in the last century
Labour and Conservative MPs are speaking in a more hostile way about immigration than at almost any other time in the last century, the Guardian can reveal.
An unprecedented analysis of 100 years of parliamentary speeches has shown a sharp shift to the right on the issue – with the biggest swing from positive to negative attitudes coming in the past five years.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:00:05 GMT
Opinium poll says it is ‘incredibly tight’ between Reform UK, Greens and Labour and all have a credible chance of winning
In the light of today’s Gorton and Denton polling (see 9.11am), it is worth remembering what Philip Cowley, another politics professor, describes as his law of byelection analysis.
I feel Thursday could be a test of Cowley’s Law of By-Election Analysis: that too much attention is paid to who wins.
Also, Cowley’s rarely used Supplementary Law of By-Election Analysis: too much attention can be paid to who comes third.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:15:37 GMT
Ofgem cap drops by 7% to £1,641 a year for consumers’ average gas and electricity costs
Annual energy bills will fall by £117 for millions of households from April after Rachel Reeves’s plan to cut £150 a year from bills was partly foiled by rising costs.
The energy regulator Ofgem’s quarterly cap will fall by 7% a year for the three months from April to £1,641 for the average combined gas and electricity bill in Great Britain, from £1,758 under the current January-March cap.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:31:51 GMT
President hails ‘turnaround for the ages’ but offers few policy pledges and repeats jibes against ‘crazy’ Democrats
Donald Trump proclaimed his first year in office a success at the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, even as his presidency is dogged by low public approval ratings before November’s midterm elections in which voters could hand control of Congress back to his Democratic opponents.
The annual address to a joint session of Congress came after months of turmoil for the Republican president, including a crackdown on immigrant communities in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens, and faltering progress on his campaign promise of lowering the cost of living.
Continue reading...Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:40:43 GMT