At 60, Davies is less of a hell-raiser than he once was – but a great deal happier. He talks about the excesses of the 90s, the sexual abuse that made him such an ‘angry boy’, his recent bladder cancer, and fatherhood

It looks as if Alan Davies is in the wrong place. Not as in the wrong venue: he’s here at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, a north London fringe theatre and comedy venue, where we arranged to meet. But he’s in the wrong part of it. Although there’s a stage with a single microphone at standup height, Davies – who has performed here many times – joins me in the auditorium, sitting down at a table. Someone in the shadows is testing the lighting, and suddenly there’s a spotlight on the stage where the mic is. Is it tempting to jump up there and do his thing, even to an audience of one? “It is a bit, yeah,” he admits.

When I started the interview, I’d found that the notebook I’d brought with me contained some diary entries from my 14-year-old son. “Have you got the wrong notebook, or has he been writing in your notebook?” Davies asks. I think B. “Sounds like he wants it to be found.”

After the initial euphoria of victory, Zoë Garbett prepares to begin running one of England’s most diverse and deprived boroughs

For the first time in decades the person sitting behind the desk in the wood-panelled office of Hackney’s imposing art deco town hall is not a Labour politician.

Zoë Garbett was elected as the east London borough’s first Green party mayor in this month’s local elections, surfing a wave of support which resulted in the party winning more than 500 seats, taking control of five councils and winning two mayoralties.

The World Cup is two weeks away, but the chatter around kits has been going for a while. From riffs on much-loved favourites to new entries with the potential to become future classics, here are the 10 fashion picks to become familiar with before the tournament

Hard-won, vital legal protections have been upended by the supreme court and the EHRC. Ultimately our lawmakers must fix this

• Alexandra Parmar-Yee is a campaigner for trans equality and a director of Trans+ Solidarity Alliance

When you try to imagine the lives of trans people in the UK today, you could be forgiven for thinking they have always been dominated entirely by fear and anxiety. Things have been getting worse, but until recently, my life as a transgender woman had not been consumed with worrying about how I’m supposed to live it. That is, until last year’s UK supreme court ruling.

In fact, when I’ve worried about needing a bathroom or felt hesitant about taking up space when invited to join a women’s network, it’s been other women who have made me feel welcome and pushed me to stop worrying. This was the reality for many trans people in the UK until 2025, when the court decided that “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act must refer to “biological sex”, upending decades of shared understanding of the law.

Alexandra Parmar-Yee is a campaigner for trans equality and a director of Trans+ Solidarity Alliance

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

A new cap on bus fares in the Highlands and islands makes exploring this stunning archipelago in Scotland a breeze

The views are remarkable. From one window, gorse-gold hills roll west towards mountains patched with snow. On the other side, fields of new spring lambs slope down to a silver sea. Elsewhere, the bus crosses wide estuaries and cascading burns. There are thatched crofts, rocky bays and birch woods starred with anemones. One of the most remarkable things about this scenic 111-mile, 3½-hour trip on bus X99 is that it costs just £2.

Until March 2026, a single from Inverness to Scrabster on Scotland’s north coast was £28. Now, thanks to a new bus fare cap in Orkney, Highland and Moray, no journey in the area costs more than £2. The bus is timed to coincide with the Northlink Ferry to Stromness, Orkney’s second biggest town, and I’m heading there to explore by bus.

Impunity breeds popular cynicism, and cynicism undergirds autocracy

As his mentor Roy Cohn counseled, Donald Trump never admits wrongdoing or apologizes. But he occasionally evinces something resembling a qualm. In October, considering renewing claims against the government for $230m in compensation for federal investigations against him, he reflected on his own appointees deciding on the payout and him signing off on it. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right?” he said. “So, I don’t know.”

That month, when he demolished the White House East Wing to build his ballroom, he made it sort of look good by vowing that the now $400m project would be privately funded. It went without saying that the donors would expect gratitude in the form of government contracts or favorable regulatory rulings.

Torsten Bell and Dan Tomlinson criticise some of the arguments in ex-PM’s 5,700-word critique of Labour

• Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, posted this on social media about Tony Blair’s latest intervention this morning.

Tony Blair.

What the billionaire class have paid for.

Spot the difference between “Tony Blair says” and “Nigel Farage says”

One of heaviest days of bombing in weeks complicates US talks with Iran, which insists any peace deal must mean end of attacks on Lebanon

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel launched more than 120 airstrikes against Lebanon on Tuesday in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his military was escalating its offensive against Hezbollah.

A ceasefire brokered by the US last month between Israel and the militant Islamist movement now appears close to total collapse, complicating negotiations to bring a definitive end to the war with Iran.

Domestic abuse commissioner ‘deeply concerned’ by move as councils in England and Wales struggle to fund reviews

The Home Office has rejected a proposal to allocate government funds for reviews into domestic abuse-related deaths.

Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said it was “deeply concerning” that local authorities in England and Wales would not receive direct resources to help them carry out domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) and urged officials to be “braver and bolder” in their decision making.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

Local authorities deem UK arrivals to be children more than twice as often as border forces, Home Office data shows

Young asylum seekers in the UK are more than twice as likely to be assessed as adults by immigration officers than by social workers, according to home office data.

Between July 2025 and March 2026, 4,320 initial age decisions made by immigration officials found just 1,363 new arrivals (32%) to be children.