Oasis and Elbow have soundtracked Burnham’s byelection campaign and he got Liam Gallagher doing Manchester’s tram announcements. Will he keep banging the drum for music if he reaches Westminster?

First came Andy Burnham’s Makerfield byelection campaign launch video, with the Greater Manchester mayor stomping down red-brick streets soundtracked by homegrown stars Oasis, Elbow and James. Then came the eye-catching, northern soul-influenced campaign logo: Change Labour, Keep the Faith. And this week, it is not just pubs and clubs but music venues that would be part of Burnham’s proposed business rates cut.

As he looks to return to Westminster then make a bid for party leadership, music is part of Brand Burnham in a way that is unusual for a mainstream politician, in a campaign where he has pitched “Manchesterism” as the solution to Britain’s woes. But it is a policy platform that can be as vague and vibes-based as a Noel Gallagher verse. How does the Mayor’s love affair with Manchester’s music industry shine a light not just on “Manchesterism”, but the man behind it?

Most of us will experience periods of solitude at some point. But beige furnishings and self-care rituals are not the answer

I have met quite a few influencers over the years and, to be frank, they’ve mostly been a strange bunch. I remember meeting one at a party a while ago, she was running around (literally) with a phone and a bunch of cables. “I don’t have data!” she screamed. “Oh hello?” I said, confused. “And I need a plug!” she declared. And then she screamed again, and promptly attached her phone to the nearest plug socket, which was stationed by her ankle. There she sat, hunched on the floor, gripping the phone and tapping it furiously.

I am only talking about my experiences here, and my sample may be wildly unrepresentative, but I have noticed patterns: they come across as twitchy and manic; they don’t make eye contact; and they seem to struggle to maintain the kind of extended volley of question-and-answer responses, shared anecdotes, or jokes, that a normal conversation requires. They basically radiate social anxiety.

Rachel Connolly is a writer and the author of the novel Lazy City

Hayward Gallery, London
Butcher bags, human sacrifice and cavernous black holes … in a world of dry art this stunning exhibition forces us to confront religion and mortality

It’s the clinging, transparent PVC that does it, a horribly surgical-looking, synthetic skin covering each of Anish Kapoor’s three paintings – can we call them that? – entitled Plastic Sacrifice I, II, III. They resemble a serial killer’s trophy art. Through the wrapping you gawp at three-dimensional purple and crimson entrails that slop off the wall, forming valleys and protuberances that, it seems, would collapse all over the floor if the carnage wasn’t contained by these butcher bags.

Sensationalist and macabre? Rembrandt’s painting Slaughtered Ox is just as visceral as it contemplates the flayed, hollowed body of a huge ox hanging upside down, its yellow fat and blood-dark meat a mirror of our own doomed flesh, not to mention the crucifixion. In the age of smartphones and minuscule attention spans, Kapoor gives artistic depth a go, addressing God and mortality, those themes of the old masters, in a metaphysical rollercoaster ride of a show, a divine bloodbath.

This crunchy, spicy wonder has made a fortune for its Chinese creator – and inspired hundreds of British-Asian versions. Time to get tasting …

Walk down the specialist aisle in most British supermarkets and you will find a red jar with the kindly face of a middle-aged Chinese woman staring back at you. Branded Lao Gan Ma, meaning “old godmother”, these jars contain chilli crisp – a spicy, crunchy and moreish umami condiment that has made made hundreds of millions for Tao Huabi, the woman on the label. Doused over steaming dumplings, fried eggs, noodles and even ice-cream, Lao Gan Ma’s chilli crisp has become a social media sensation in recent years and has spawned a thriving cottage industry of independent chilli crisp producers in the UK.

“It’s such a convenient shortcut to flavour when you use it as a condiment,” says Fuchsia Dunlop, an expert in Chinese cuisine. “Every Asian cuisine has a form of chilli oil, but China and Lao Gan Ma invented chilli crisp and now the western world is more interested in authentic flavours, thanks partly to social media.” People, she says, want to have their own taste of that authenticity. “It’s far more exciting than a bottle of ketchup!”

We go behind the scenes at rehearsals for William Kentridge’s new staging of Monteverdi’s 1607 opera l’Orfeo

‘L’Orfeo is an opera about opera. It’s an opera about the power of music. It’s about the power of art to construct the world,” says director and artist William Kentridge. Claudio Monteverdi’s 1607 work is, if not quite the first ever opera, the earliest opera still performed today, written when the form was in its very infancy.

Monteverdi called his work – composed for performance at the ducal court of Mantua, a “favola in musica – legend in music”. “Monteverdi was a genius,” says conductor Jonathan Cohen. “The piece is about the world’s most famous musician. He begins with a prologue where he has the allegorical character of La Musica [Music, here sung by Francesca Aspromonte, who also sings Eurydice in this production], who says ‘I am music, and I have the power to stop the birds singing, the power over nature.’ And of course Orfeo, the musician, has the power to control even the rocks, the trees, the animals and effect human emotions.”

William Kentridge (centre) during rehearsals, above, and, below, Kentridge talks with Francesca Aspromonte (La Musica/Euridice) and Roseline Wilkens (Euridice). Photograph by David Levene

As the world waited for rational outcomes from irrational players, the people being bombed were forced to adjust to the fact of terror as part of daily life

“Humans take a lot of killing,” wrote Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes. As bleak a phrase as it is, McCourt was talking about resilience, how much poverty and abuse a person can withstand and still survive. But the other side of human capacity for pain is how much can be forced upon us and normalised. It is bewildering how war – shocking and intolerable at first – quickly becomes a matter of fact. Few conflicts have demonstrated that more vividly than the war on Iran. For months it was a matter of low-grade strikes, hot and cold rhetoric, and near-conclusions to the hostilities that never came. Sharp political crisis manifested as grinding hardship and upheaval for the people.

We have a peace deal now, for that be thankful, but think what preceded it. Over the past week alone, Donald Trump had ordered strikes on Iran, and expressed a desire to take Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. He then prematurely declared that the US had ended the war on Iran in a “great settlement”. The markets did their customary flicker in response to the announcement of a deal, but the rest of us, not invested in oil futures, could have been forgiven for not registering a reaction to imminent peace – he had made the same promise almost 40 times. In press conferences, social media posts and interviews over the past few months, Trump had said relax, it’s almost over. Just how not over it was can be traced by the strikes and counter-strikes across the region, the closure of the strait of Hormuz, general global economic upheaval and specific Middle East destabilisation.

Initial deal expected to be signed on Friday but Israel has ruled out withdrawing from Lebanon

• Peace deal between US and Iran announced, with strait of Hormuz expected to reopen

• Explainer: what do we know about the US-Iran peace deal?

The agreement between the United ⁠States and Iran should allow for the “immediate reopening” ⁠of the ⁠Strait ​of Hormuz, EU Commission President Ursula von ⁠der Leyen said on Monday.

“The priority now is ⁠its swift and full implementation ​by all parties,” ‌von der ‌Leyen said about the ‌announced deal.

Prime minister announces ban, saying social media is making children unhappy and unsafe

• Social media to be banned in UK for under-16s, Starmer announces

• UK parents: how do you feel about the under-16s social media ban?

Starmer acknowledges some teenagers will get round these restrictons. But that does not make the rules pointless, he says.

Will it mean that no child ever looks at social media again? No.

But look, this might shock you, but it doesn’t shock parents of teenagers; they get around other laws too.

Some technology companies want us to think that social media is unchangeable, part of an almost natural order.

But we have to resist that kind of learned helplessness. We have agency, we can change it, and we will.

Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc convicted at Old Bailey over attacks on property and car connected to PM

Two men have been found guilty of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property and a car connected to Keir Starmer.

Roman Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday. Another Ukrainian man, Petro Pochynok, 35, was cleared of the same charge.

Solicitor general asks for Vickrum Digwa’s 21-year minimum jail term to be reviewed under ‘unduly lenient sentence’ scheme

The 21-year minimum jail term handed to a Sikh man who murdered Henry Nowak is to be reviewed by the court of appeal after a referral by the solicitor general.

In a statement on Monday, the solicitor general, Ellie Reeves, said the case had “horrified me”.