If the radical agenda is real, it points to an early general election. Burnham said that the National Care Service will be introduced ‘in the next parliament’ and electoral reform will be a ‘manifesto commitment’. He struck the pose of a leader already in campaign mode. It seems unlikely that he intends to wait three years before implementing his flagship policies.
For a little over a year, the theatre directors Milo Rau and Servane Dècle have been touring a play based on the Pelicot mass rape trial. First performed in Vienna in June 2025, The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot has travelled to Avignon (where the trial was held), a number of other European cities and New York. In many places, it has been one night only. The next performance will be on 4 October in St Gallen; it comes to London at the end of November. I saw it in Copenhagen, at the Betty Nansen Teatret, whose new artistic directors ‘want to create a theatre that dares to engage with the world we live in and insists that we can understand it better’.
In Iran, as elsewhere, GLP-1 agonists such as semaglutide and tirzepatide offer a chance to address obesity, improve organ functioning and treat various chronic health conditions. The drugs are also popular with those who simply want to lose weight. Sales have been robust, even in the face of US and Israeli military strikes and a worsening economic crisis. Over a recent four-month period, national sales of tirzepatide reached 150 billion rials, or about £8.2 million.
Given much of the coverage of the Ed Sheeran-Macklemore debacle, you could be forgiven for thinking that Sheeran had been dropped from his tour for not being pro-Palestinian enough. But of course he wasn’t. It is Macklemore, not Sheeran, who has been barred from performing. Yet somehow the story is about Sheeran’s freedom to be apolitical.
The frenzy in Israel surrounding the documentary NAZA is fundamentally undemocratic. That is what happens after years of extreme right-wing populism, amplified by social media and new technology – in the context of decades of conflict, occupation, apartheid and impunity. This is denial and bullying as political culture.
Johnny Marr with his Gibson ES-355 at Hammersmith Palais, London, 15 June 1984 (DPA)
The Smiths kicked off the Scottish leg of their Meat is Murder tour at the Magnum Leisure Centre in Irvine New Town on 22 September 1985, and I was at that gig, watching from the middle of the crowd as all the tough boys from school tried to climb the stage. It was a signal moment. There on his own side was Johnny Marr. He had an amazing stance, folded around his fabulous guitar and swaying his head from side to side.
The opening ceremony of the World Nomad Games in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 31 August 2026 (ZUMA Press / Alamy)
Kok-boru is a horseback sport related to polo, played with a headless goat carcass rather than a ball and mallets. The equestrian scrums are violent and players are routinely thrown off their horses. It was the highlight of the World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan earlier this month. The ‘Olympics of Central Asia’ also include horseback archery, falconry, mancala and poetry improvisation.