The PM has brought in Darren Jones, whose superpower is ‘relentless delivery’. If that won’t save the world, what will?

“If I hear one more of our people saying that deckchairs are being shuffled on the Titanic,” a government supporter of Keir Starmer confided to the Daily Mail, “I will scream.” No need for shrieks. The prime minister’s No 10 hokey cokey on Monday wasn’t so much shuffling the deckchairs as restructuring the deck crew and announcing that some fresh faces will enable the team to work with new focus towards their ultimate goal of reshuffling. Expect the first strategy whiteboard to be broken out 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

For now, hold on to your aperitifs and continue to dress for dinner, because the erstwhile chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, becomes something called chief secretary to the prime minister. To Starmer, Darren is a Mr Fixit; to many of his cabinet colleagues, he is a Mr Fuxit. That’s not the official line Downing Steet is going with, preferring instead to claim that yet another reset means Starmer is focused on “relentless delivery”. Delivery of what? They’ve barely passed any legislation. Hand on heart, meanwhile, I’m not sure the word “relentless” means what Starmer reckons it does. All he ever does is relent, on both staff and policy. The role of his comms chief, for example, is now essentially a gig economy job, while doing a monthly U-turn is the only thing he hasn’t U-turned on. We are watching a movie in which it’s not clear what the main character wants. Unsurprisingly, it has turned out to be box-office poison.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Veganism is still on the rise, but many popular venues and chains are shutting down. Are they victims of a terrible era for hospitality or part of a growing shift in cultural values?

When London’s Unity Diner wrapped up 2024 with the announcement that it would soon be shutting its doors for good, it expected some sadness from its customers. After all, the not-for-profit restaurant had been an innovator in the city’s vegan scene, serving up 3D-printed “vegan steak” (made of plant protein with the fibrous feel of the real thing) and disarmingly realistic “tofish” (tofu fish) alongside the classic burgers and chips. Throw in its animal sanctuary fundraising, and the restaurant had been faithfully embraced by vegans.

But, from the reaction it received, you would think its supporters were genuinely grieving. “We had people coming in and crying and hugging the staff,” says its co-founder, Andy Crumpton, his surprise audible. There was another element to the devastation, he says. For its plant-based punters, Unity Diner was yet another meat-free establishment that had outwardly appeared to be prospering, only to suddenly shut down.

Festivals are increasingly seen as a family holiday and many have kids’ areas – even nannies. We brave the hot tents and random ravers to see what they’re like

As a DJ plays MJ Cole’s UK garage classic Crazy Love, adults across London’s Cross the Tracks festival lift up little children in brightly coloured ear-defenders to dance. A smile spreads across my baby son’s face as he bounces his body, finding something that looks like rhythm. Later that day, my daughter snuggles into my chest in her carrier as I dance to songs by Ezra Collective that she has heard in the car many times.

My mum took me to Reading festival when I was 16 and as I’ve grown up there have been new ones to match the seasons of my life. Then came motherhood: last year I became a single parent to a pair of delicious, curious, boisterous twin babies. But I don’t want to stop indulging my inner child alongside my actual children, and I’m determined to keep music festivals in my life.

Shock, panic, guilt and grief grip survivors as mental health experts warn of chronic trauma from repeated exposure to natural disasters

For a 10-year-old, the loss is proving hard to grasp. “It has been four days since I last saw my home,” says Ahsan. He has not yet understood that the floods completely swept away his house in Dogoro Basha village in Shigar, Pakistan.

His confusion is part of the devastating aftermath of long months of rain and floods that have devastated thousands of families in the country’s northern provinces and left more than 860 people dead so far.

Over a few brutal days in March, as sectarian violence and revenge killings tore through parts of Syria, two friends from different communities tried to find a way to survive

On the night of 6 March, Munir, his wife and their two sons, both in their 20s, got no sleep. They huddled together in a small bedroom in their apartment as government troops and militiamen entered their neighbourhood of Qusour in the coastal city of Baniyas and went from house to house. The fighters seemed to be moving through the streets with little coordination. One house might get raided by five separate groups, while others were left untouched. “There was no plan,” Munir said, “just violence and looting.”

The first question the fighters were asking when they stormed into an apartment was: “Are you a Sunni or an Alawite?” The answer decided the fate of the residents. Sunnis were spared – although in some cases their apartments were looted. When the raiders found an Alawite home, some stole what they could carry and left; others had come for revenge and would steal first and then shoot. “If one didn’t kill you, the next one might,” Munir said.

Putin’s invasion has seen Ukrainian book lovers recoil from Russian literary dominance, by a range of means

One day this summer, the Ukrainian artist Stanislav Turina took two of his books to his garden near Kyiv. One was a volume of poems by Alexander Pushkin.

But Turina – a voracious reader, never without a couple of books in his backpack – had no plans to pick it up again.

Chancellor will face more limited fiscal headroom at budget after yield on 30-year bond increases to 5.68%

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• Reshuffle gymnastics prepare Starmer to walk tricky budget tightrope

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs have hit their highest level in 27 years, intensifying the pressure on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, before the autumn budget.

The yield, or interest rate, on 30-year UK government debt hit 5.721% on Tuesday. That is its highest level since 1998, indicating that it will cost the UK more to borrow from the markets, above the previous 27-year high of 5.649% set in April.

Landslide winner of leadership election says migrants are backbone of UK and his party should not sell out patriotism to Farage

Lamb says the Greens are “the antidote to Reform”.

That gets a big round of applause.

We’re a home for all those people across the country holding their heads in their hands as the Labour government lets them down again and again and again, whether it is switching from the aid budget or from people with disabilities and not bringing in taxes … we need.

And that is why, in reaction, a new Green wave is sweeping the country as people turn to us.

It’s already become a bit of a cliche, but we are really moving into a multi-party system, with the Greens poised to help create the next government.

And, like all the best cliches, it has the distinct advantage of also being for true.

About 130,000 to be contacted for first time in response to ‘alarming’ spike in numbers claiming asylum

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Tens of thousands of foreign students are to be contacted directly by the government and warned that they will be removed from the UK if they overstay their visas.

The Home Office has launched the new campaign in response to what it has called an “alarming” spike in the number of international students arriving legally on student visas then claiming asylum when they expire.

Russian leader, continuing China visit, is joined by Slovakia’s Robert Fico

In the meantime, we have had an update from Ukraine where a man accused of murdering a pro-western Ukrainian politician in the city of Lviv last weekend admitted that he carried out the killing but denied working for Russia, describing the attack as “personal revenge,” AFP reported.

“This is my personal revenge on the Ukrainian authorities,” the suspect told reporters in a video published by Ukrainian media outlets, denying he worked directly with Russian special services.