The party seems to have woken up to its need for an old-style intellectual heavyweight to counter the vacuousness of recent years

Nature famously abhors a vacuum. So when Morgan McSweeney departed government, leaving a hole where much of Keir Starmer’s thinking used to be, it was always going to be filled eventually. And increasingly, that filling looks Ed Miliband-shaped.

The energy secretary’s influence has visibly grown in recent weeks, and not just because of a spiralling energy crisis in the Gulf. The idea that he is the real prime minister now – the one supposedly calling the shots over everything from whether Britain should join the war on Iran to how far it should pursue its “fatwa against fossil fuels”, as Michael Gove, the former Tory minister turned Spectator editor-in-chief, huffed recently – is on one level just another attempt by the opposition to humiliate Starmer, painting him as a lame-duck leader pushed around by underlings. But if the truth is a bit more nuanced than that, there’s no denying Miliband has grown in stature of late.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Show draws almost entirely from collection of Lancashire schoolteacher Peter Smithson, a fan since he was 10

Peter Smithson’s wife, Belise, has never minded when he receives a corset from Japan or a pair of fur-trimmed knickers and they are not for her.

“No, she’s never seen it as strange,” said Smithson, a chemistry teacher and Vivienne Westwood supercollector. “She has never judged it. She gets it. She knows it is part and parcel of who I am.”

Winning two Grammys last month cemented the New Yorker’s transition from producer for the likes of Drake to guitar-soloing superstar. Now he has Stevie Wonder calling him up – though he’s conscious of living up to the greats

Forget viral hits or sold-out shows: you know you’ve reached the big time when the godfather of funk gives you custom-made headgear. Last spring, Leon Thomas was backstage at California’s Coachella festival and due to join Ty Dolla $ign, his label boss, for a performance alongside George Clinton. The cosmic crusader said to Thomas: “‘You’re the kid who does the dog song, right? I made something for you,’” Thomas recalls. “He gave me this cool white hat with a foxtail on it.”

Thomas wore it to play Mutt, his 2024 breakthrough single, followed by a rendition of Clinton’s 1982 P-funk anthem Atomic Dog. But not before Clinton hot-boxed the trailer. “I don’t really smoke weed any more, but I was in the dressing room with him and Ty,” says Thomas, 32. “They both were smoking so much – when I was on stage, I realised, ‘Ohhh, I’m a little buzzed right now!’” A spiritual baton had been passed. “We went up there and rocked the crowd,” Thomas continues. “It was like 12, 13,000 [people] out there, the energy was crazy. I don’t know if you can tell, I’m still buzzing.”

In Modulo 2, a renovated wing of a high-security facility in Cancún, female prisoners find moments of solidarity, pride and creativity in their confinement

At the end of a road in the city of Cancún, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, a tall watchtower rises behind barbed wire and perimeter walls closely monitored by the army. This is where the Cereso stands, a high-security prison complex housing a men’s facility as well as a section called Modulo 2 that is reserved for females. A total of 284 women are held there.

Inside, time moves slowly. Days unfold according to a strict schedule, structured around chores and workshops organised by the prison administration.

A morning Zumba session in the yard of the Cereso. Physical activities are part of the facility’s daily routine

It started with an obscure railway postbox that had been thrown in a skip – now my museum has pieces from Scotland, Ireland and Hong Kong

Back in 1994, I went to north Wales to see the miniature steam trains – I was a fan of railways. On a platform at Rhyl station, I noticed the painted outline of a postbox – it was all that remained of one that had stood there since the late 1800s.

It turns out it had been vandalised, set alight and chucked in a skip. I asked the station manager if I could see it and he jokingly said: “Give me 20 quid and you can take it away with you.”

The IOC’s shift in position on trans women in elite sports is seismic, but new president Kirsty Coventry is reflecting a changed political climate

By any measure, it amounts to one of the most astonishing U-turns from a governing body in modern times. Four and a half years ago, the International Olympic Committee was lauding the appearance of the first transgender weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, at an Olympics, and issuing a framework to sports saying that transgender women “should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage” over biological women.

Now it has not only ripped up every last morsel of that guidance but also performed a spectacular 180-degree turn.

US president says he is extending deadline for strait of Hormuz to reopen to 6 April; German foreign minister says peace talks to take place ‘very soon’

More now on India slashing taxes on diesel and petrol amid the global disruption in energy supplies: finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the move would “provide protection to consumers from rise in prices”.

The country is one of the world’s largest crude oil importers and relies on foreign suppliers for more than 85% of its oil needs, with Russia being the biggest supplier.

Keir Starmer promises help for parents in limiting children’s online activity as government issues guidance to families

Children under five should spend no more than an hour a day on screens, new government advice says.

Screen time for children under two should be avoided other than for shared activities encouraging interaction, families will also be advised.

Number fell 23% year on year in 2025 but waste companies say recycling systems still under strain from sheer volume

More than 6m vapes and vape pods are still being discarded every week in the UK, with waste management companies warning the sheer volume continues to strain recycling systems despite the ban on disposable e-cigarettes.

According to research by the recycling campaign group Material Focus, the 6.3m vapes and pods thrown away each week in 2025 represented a 23% reduction from the previous year.

Pensions minister promises the ‘full truth’ as external advisers are hired to identify the scale of the errors

The chief executive of the state-backed National Savings and Investments bank has been forced out over a scandal that left thousands of bereaved families owed almost £500m.

The savings institution is in discussions with the Treasury to repay about 37,500 people who collectively have £470m in deposits trapped in the bank after long-running operational errors.