From Blue Lights gossip to How to Get to Heaven from Belfast cocktails, the city has become a small-screen hotspot – and is basking in its newfound fame

‘I love them!” Minutes after I jump into a taxi at Belfast International airport, the driver is beaming about Derry Girls. So many tourists he picks up want to talk about the hit comedy and, as a fan himself, he’s happy to oblige.

We’re stuck in traffic, which is odd for this small city on a wet Tuesday morning. “It’s because all the media are here,” he jokes. But there is some truth to it. I’m visiting for the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, the new series from Derry Girls mastermind Lisa McGee, and to see how the capital became home to the best TV.

With their profile and vile words, these malign provocateurs are tearing down decency’s guardrails

It lacks the elegance of “greed is good”, but as a distillation of the spirit of the age, it’s right up there. “I feel liberated,” a top banker told the Financial Times shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled … it’s a new dawn.”

So that’s what they meant by “vibe shift”. Though, as the Epstein files reveal daily, the top 0.01% were hardly primly biting their tongues before Trump’s win, at least not in private. Those with telephone-number fortunes and great power felt able to speak, and write, to each other about women in language so vicious, so filled with hate – women discussed as body parts, as “less than human”, in Gordon Brown’s apt phrase – that they didn’t need the encouragement of a “grab ’em by the pussy” president to cast off their inhibitions.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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(Atlantic)
Casting off her Bratty cigarettes and sunglasses, the pop visionary channels the torments of Heathcliff and Cathy and the tumult of the Velvet Underground on her latest captivating pivot

In the catalogues of rock and pop artists, film soundtracks usually seem like interstitial releases. For every career highlight Shaft or Superfly, there’s a plethora of soundtrack albums that carry the tang of the side-hustle. It was doubtless flattering to be asked in the first place – who doesn’t want to feel like a polymath? – but the results are doomed to languish in the footnotes, alongside the compilations of B-sides and outtakes, where only diehard fans spend extended amounts of time.

But the release of House, the first single taken from Charli xcx’s soundtrack to Wuthering Heights, strongly suggested that its author saw Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë as a chance for a reset. In 2024’s Brat, she made an album you could genuinely call era-defining without fear of embarrassment: if an album makes an impact on the US presidential campaign and its title ends up refashioned as an adjective in the Collins English Dictionary, then it’s definitely era-defining.

Soft left senses chance to push Starmer into progressive pivot, but leftward turn would be fiercely resisted by some

• UK politics live – latest updates

As the prime minister fought for his political life before Labour MPs at their Monday evening meeting, even hardened sceptics saw a flash of something different in Keir Starmer.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said Starmer had been “liberated”. He did not have to spell out who from. His comments came 24 hours after the departure of Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a man who has shaped Labour’s modern incarnation.

The home secretary has vowed to fight the judgment, but she and the government are on the wrong side of history

This is a day of humiliation for those who facilitated Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and a moment of vindication for those who stood against “the crime of crimes”. It is worth underlining what the high court in London has today ruled to be unlawful: our government’s decision to place the direct-action group Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaida and Islamic State. Legally speaking, simply showing support for it risked a jail sentence of up to 14 years. The consequences? More than 2,700 people arrested for holding placards opposing genocide and supporting Palestine Action, many of them elderly, including a retired octogenarian priest.

No one who engages in criminal damage for a political cause imagines they will avoid arrest. As the court ruling makes clear, normal criminal law remains available for such acts. But when a government applies the badge of “terrorism” to movements that, however disorderly, are clearly not terrorist movements, an alarming precedent is set. As the court recognised, the proscription interferes with rights to freedom of expression, to peaceful assembly and free associations with others. You do not need a fevered imagination to see how a future Reform UK government could build on such a precedent. (As things stand, the ban on the group remains in effect so the government has time to appeal.)

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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From handheld to corded, self-emptying to stick models, these are our resident cleaner’s favourite vacuums for a spotless home

• The best cordless vacuum cleaners, tested
• How to make your vacuum cleaner last longer

Buying a vacuum cleaner isn’t as easy as you might think. With so many brands and models to choose from, it can be bewildering. Sticking with established brands isn’t necessarily a safe bet, with past performance being no guarantee that the latest models will be as good. Meanwhile, prices can be deceptive, with some affordable models now closing the gap on top-of-the-range brands when it comes to cleaning performance.

You can’t know all this by browsing through a department store or online. The ideal thing to do would be to take a few models home to try them out – but good luck persuading anyone to let you do that. Thankfully, you won’t have to try because I’ve tested an array of models for you. I’ve measured each one’s ability to perform a range of real-world cleaning jobs, so you can discover the best vacuum cleaner for you.

Best corded vacuum cleaner overall:
Shark Detect XL Car + Pet LA791UKT

Best cordless vacuum cleaner overall:
Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IP3251UKT

Thousands arrested for supporting group since proscription are now in legal limbo as Mahmood says she will appeal

Three senior judges have ruled that the ban on the direct action group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws was disproportionate and unlawful, handing the home secretary a humiliating defeat.

Shabana Mahmood was urged to respect the court’s decision after the judges said the ban, introduced by her predecessor Yvette Cooper, impinged on the right to protest and should be quashed.

An undercover operative stopped the pair from carrying out what could have been UK’s deadliest terrorist attack

Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.

Ex-husband of Nicola Sturgeon and former CEO of party is due to appear in Glasgow court next Friday

The former chief executive of the Scottish National party (SNP) Peter Murrell has been accused of embezzling £459,000 from the party over a period of more than 12 years, according to court documents that emerged ahead of a hearing.

Murrell, the ex-husband of the former first minister and party leader Nicola Sturgeon, is due to appear at the high court in Glasgow next Friday for a preliminary hearing in the case.

Number of employees declined by more than 14% to 24,963 last year, with fall greatest among younger workers

• AI is indeed coming – but there is also evidence to allay investor fears

UK advertising agencies had their biggest annual exodus of staff last year, led by younger workers, as artificial intelligence tools threaten to replace workers and force the industry to cut jobs and costs.

Staff numbers at creative agencies, which are facing acute pressure from the rollout of AI tools that reduce or even replace the need for agency staff, fell more than 14% in 2025.