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I Swear’s Robert Aramayo had Bafta’s feelgood moment, but the night belonged to Paul Thomas Anderson

Six wins for US director’s ICE-baiting film of American resistance recognised Anderson’s commitment to complex drama, while best actor win for rising British star was thoroughly deserved

This turned out to be a very British night for the Baftas, a smidgen more British than usual in fact. It started out with the Hollywood A-listers in the audience being presented with hilarious British snacks, of whose existence they had no more idea than they had of life forms on the moons of Saturn. Emma Stone got some Hula Hoops, Timothée Chalamet had a bag of Scampi Fries and Leonardo DiCaprio got his laughing gear around a Hobnob flapjack.

The other intensely British thing was the red-carpet appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales (the former being Bafta’s president); their presence enforced that other terribly British tradition of everyone, as if in a Mike Leigh film, avoiding the subject. Everyone trying not to talk or think about the elephant in the room or the elephant slumped and stricken in the speeding car on the way home from the police station. Well, at least William never liked him.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 21:43:49 GMT
The Lady review – this maddening drama’s take on Sarah Ferguson utterly fails to read the room

If you’re hoping for a sensitive depiction of the sad story of Sarah Ferguson’s royal aide who murdered her partner, don’t bother. It’s a gaudy mess, whose version of Ferguson overshadows everything

‘This drama has been inspired by a true story,” announces The Lady, ushering us into the solemnly lit antechamber that is the miniseries’ introductory disclaimer. The italics continue: “Some names have been changed,” they read, “and some characters, events and scenes have been created and merged for dramatic purposes.” Hmm, we think, as a queasily off-balance piano lurches and stumbles in the background. “Created and merged”? This, surely, is the language of a school theatre project, with its glue guns and earnest pretensions, not that of a lavish ITV four-parter that focuses on the very real rise, fall and eventual conviction-for-murder of Jane Andrews, a former M&S employee from Grimsby who served, from 1988 to 1997, as a dresser to Sarah Ferguson, the then-Duchess of York. This does not, surely, bode well.

Still. The Lady is produced by Left Bank Pictures, who also made The Crown. And it’s written by Debbie O’ Malley, who did many wonderful things with Channel 5’s unexpectedly excellent “reboot” of All Creatures Great and Small. So, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt. And we do. Until, that is, 16 minutes into the first episode, when Sarah Ferguson (Natalie “Game of Thrones” Dormer) bursts into Jane Andrews’ (Mia “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” McKenna-Bruce) job interview at Buckingham Palace and … Oh. Oh dear. Any hopes that The Lady might offer a serious and sensitive depiction of the complex real-life events that led a mentally unstable young woman to brutally murder her partner instantly wilt. What we get instead is a gaudy mess; a strange and exasperating thing that clomps between aerated royal soap, plodding police procedural, exuberant coming-of-age period piece and hand-wringing domestic drama with the grace of a pantomime horse at a black-tie buffet.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 22:00:48 GMT
‘She would pop up in my sexual fantasies’: what happens when you fancy your therapist?

They’re often compassionate good listeners who focus on their clients’ needs – so is it any wonder many patients find themselves with a crush? A writer, who is in exactly this position, talks to people on both sides of the couch

I was half-watching the latest series of the Netflix romcom Nobody Wants This when suddenly things got interesting. Spoiler alert: it had just been revealed that one of the characters (Morgan) was in a relationship with her newly ex-therapist (Dr Andy). While some of the characters freaked out, declaring the relationship very concerning, I felt a frisson of excitement. Because I, too, have harboured the desire to date my therapist.

As it turns out, this fantasy is neither unusual nor unexpected. “Psychoanalysis almost insists on transference,” explains psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber, using the term coined by Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, in his 1895 work Studies on Hysteria. The basic premise is that the patient projects old feelings, attitudes, desires or fantasies on to their therapist. This can manifest in numerous ways – often at the same time – covering the whole gamut of emotions and relationships, from love to hate, maternal to erotic, and everything in between.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:00:38 GMT
‘Trump’s reign of terror must end’: California Democrats plot national return to power

Emboldened by recent wins, elected officials gathered in San Francisco to share strategy for a midterm ‘reckoning’

Fury at Donald Trump was the coin of the realm, as thousands of California delegates, activists and elected officials gathered in San Francisco this weekend, emboldened by a string of victories and confident the Golden State would help deliver a power check on the president in the upcoming midterm elections.

On Saturday, Democrats streamed through the Moscone Center convention complex, sporting lanyards emblazoned with Gavin Newsom’s name and tote bags adorned with one of Nancy Pelosi’s favorite aphorisms: “We don’t Agonize, we organize” – symbols of a party in transition as the former speaker approaches retirement and the term-limited governor eyes a presidential campaign.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 23:24:31 GMT
Are we really overdiagnosing mental illness?

It’s tempting to dismiss the proliferation of labels as a fad, but there’s more to this phenomenon than a simple culture-war reading allows

My psychological research rarely makes good comedy material, but in a standup show in London recently, those two worlds collided. One of the jokes was about how everyone is getting diagnosed with ADHD these days – about the social media videos that encourage viewers to identify common human experiences, like daydreaming or talking a lot, as evidence of the condition. The audience laughed because everyone got it – they’ve all witnessed how common it seems to have become in the last few years. When something becomes this prevalent in society, and this mystifying, it’s no surprise it ends up as a punchline.

Part of my work as an academic involves trying to solve the puzzle of why so many more people, especially young people, are reporting symptoms of mental illness compared to even five or 10 years ago. (ADHD is a form of neurodivergence, rather than a mental illness, but both have seen an increase, so they are related questions.) Whenever I talk about this – to colleagues, school staff, parents – it doesn’t take long until someone brings up that judgment-laden, hot-button word: overdiagnosis.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:00:39 GMT
How a Welsh village saved its forest … and its future

In an edited extract from her latest book, Hazel Sheffield sets out a new blueprint for community stewardship

It was a Saturday in February 2020 when the flood came. It had been a wet winter, so wet it seemed that before the month was out, the brown trout of the River Taff might be washed clean out into Cardiff Bay before the fishing season had even begun. But this is Wales. People are used to a spot of rain. No one realised how bad it would get.

For two days, it hammered on the windows of the houses at the top of the South Wales Valleys, where people tucked in their children before a sleepless night. It poured into the rivers at the bottom. By the time the rain departed again, many people would be standing in water up to their knees.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:00:36 GMT
Send support for schoolchildren in England to be given £4bn overhaul

‘Generational’ reforms are a key moment for Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and for Keir Starmer

Ministers will unveil a “generational” overhaul of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) support, pledging £4bn to transform provision in schools in England and warning councils they could lose control of Send services if they fail to meet their legal duties.

The reforms are expected to be a key policy moment for Keir Starmer and for the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson – who delayed the changes last autumn after a ferocious backlash from MPs and parents.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 22:30:49 GMT
Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain, Zia Yusuf to say

Nigel Farage’s party plans to deport up to 288,000 people a year on five flights a day and expand stop and search

Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as terminating the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR), the party will say.

It would also ban the conversion of churches into mosques and fund a radical expansion of stop and search, the party’s new home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, will also say in a speech on Monday. The deradicalisation programme Prevent would also have its mandate redrawn to focus on Islamist extremism.

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Sun, 22 Feb 2026 22:01:48 GMT
Violence erupts after Mexican security forces kill drug cartel boss ‘El Mencho’

Death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, one of world’s most wanted drug traffickers, sets off wave of disorder across several Mexican states

One of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers, the Mexican cartel boss known as “El Mencho”, has been killed by security forces, Mexico’s defence ministry has confirmed. The operation set off a wave of violence, with torched cars and gunmen blocking highways in more than half a dozen states.

The drug lord, whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, was killed on Sunday in the western state of Jalisco along with at least six alleged accomplices, the ministry said in a statement.

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Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:39:49 GMT
UK job vacancies ‘fall to lowest level since pandemic’

Advertised roles dropped 3% last month to 695,000 – first dip below 700,000 since January 2021, job site Adzuna says

The number of job vacancies in the UK has tumbled to the lowest level in five years, research suggests, falling to levels not seen since the pandemic.

The number of jobs being advertised slid by 3% in January to 695,000, according to the job search site Adzuna, marking the first time advertised vacancies have dropped below 700,000 since January 2021.

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Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:01:51 GMT

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