The latest character dressing trend may be a little silly but there’s an off-kilter pleasure in its mellow, vintage vibe

Welcome to the season of the Posh Grandpa, fashion’s newest main character. We’ve had Brat, we did Coastal Grandma, we loved Tomato Girl Summer. The world is pretty heavy right now, as you’ll have noticed, so any opportunity to lighten up is precious. The nonsense is the point.

Character dressing is style that makes you smile, but it’s not just that. There is infinitely more joy in these looks, however silly they are, than there is in aspiring to look rich and pretty, which is where the aesthetic centre of gravity of our culture swings back to again and again. The esoteric sides of fashion’s personality capture something important about style, which is that it needs a bit of friction to make it interesting. The pebble in the boot, the surprise to snag the eye. This is where the magic happens.

Why would Tory leader bother to look into national or global politics? That time would be better spent picking fights

Being assertive and sounding confident is always a good start. No leader of the opposition is going to get far without those qualities. And Kemi Badenoch certainly manages that. But winning at prime minister’s questions requires something more basic than that. Something fundamental. A very basic understanding of the facts.

Not just reading a headline in the papers and a few posts on social media. Not just listening to a junior minister sound a bit confused on the Today programme. You need to put in the hard yards. Or at least do some very elementary research. Otherwise you risk coming badly unstuck.

Whether it’s the traditional boiled diet, a dental epidemic or white-winged extremism, Patrick Gathara explains why political turmoil is engulfing the UK

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The UK has been in a state of political crisis for months, but recent local elections have resulted in the most serious challenge yet to the country’s prime minister and ruling elites, with experts predicting the UK could be facing its sixth regime change in 10 years amid “tribal disputes and separatist movements.”

To make sense of it all, I spoke to the Nairobi-based British affairs satirist Patrick Gathara about the future of the “island Kingdom of Britain”.

From synthpop to drum’n’bass, the company had a roster of edgy stars – and let them do what they wanted. As a new podcast is launched, artists and staff remember the extreme work environment

‘My eyes have started to fucking flicker because you just mentioned London Records,” says Goldie, having an involuntary physical reaction at the mere thought of his old label. “If a nightclub could be a record company, it would have been London Records. It was the equivalent of Studio 54. It looked like a normal record company from the outside – shiny, lots of nice cars on the driveway – but it was the craziest, most hedonistic madness.”

A new six-part podcast, Hit That Perfect Beat – The London Records Story, is delving into its colourful history. The label was originally part of Decca Records, once home to the likes of the Rolling Stones, but when Decca was acquired by Polygram in 1980, London began a new chapter as an independent label operating with major label distribution. “We were put in there to develop it into a pop label,” recalls ex-managing director Colin Bell, who was a pivotal figure alongside Roger Ames and Tracy Bennet. “We were obsessed with being cool. We wanted to be easily identifiable for a generation of young people. We wanted pop that had an edge.”

Plants whose beauty is flawed carry a message in Children’s Society garden, a gold medal winner at Chelsea flower show

Gardens do not have to be perfect to be beautiful – and neither do teenagers. That is the central message behind the Children’s Society garden, which has won a gold medal at this year’s RHS Chelsea flower show. And prickly poppies, a bird’s nest fern planted in a drain and verbascum arcturus, a delicate-looking yellow flower with hairy stems, are among the plants chosen to convey it – plants whose beauty is flawed.

“The overlaying narrative of the garden is ‘beauty in imperfection’,” said the designer, Patrick Clarke. “Perfection is the most debilitating thing for young people because it’s something that is unattainable, and when they’re bombarded with images of perfection on social media … that is very, I think, threatening to people’s mental health.”

When drum’n’bass grew stale in the 90s, it got a samba-splicing Brazilian twist. As that style returns, the scene’s legends and newcomers celebrate a cross-cultural triumph

Wagner Ribeiro de Souza wasn’t carrying much in his backpack. A local compilation of techno, house and jungle hits, a couple of news clippings and a VHS tape with footage from the club where he played weekly: small fragments of a music scene that he, under the moniker DJ Patife, and some friends were building in São Paulo, Brazil.

It was 1998. He had travelled to London to talk his way into the office of Movement, one of Britain’s most important drum’n’bass nights, with a single goal: pitching an edition of the party in Brazil. “I played that tape recorded at the club,” Patife remembers. “And when Bryan Gee saw like 2,000 people singing, he said: ‘Let’s go to Brazil right now!’”

Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor understood to support home secretary’s push to limit legal and illegal migration

Andy Burnham is backing Shabana Mahmood’s controversial changes to the immigration system, his allies have said, in a blow to those in Labour who hope to soften them.

The Greater Manchester mayor is understood to be keen to reframe the changes but supportive of the home secretary’s attempts to limit legal and illegal migration, which have been criticised by some senior Labour MPs as un-British and mimicking Trump.

Far-right figure Itamar Ben-Gvir shares footage of himself taunting bound international detainees

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Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid.

There was a rapid and furious response from countries whose citizens were onboard the boats, including the UK, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, in many cases delivered in person from the top of government.

Father describes Jane Adetoro, Christina Walter and Rebecca Walter as ‘the beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love’

Three women whose bodies were recovered from the sea off Brighton beach were sisters described by their father as the “beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love”.

Emergency services were called after concerns were raised for a person’s welfare at about 5.45am on 13 May, before three bodies were pulled from the water near Madeira Drive.

Keir Starmer describes the agreement, worth double original estimates, as a ‘huge win’ for British businesses

Keir Starmer has struck a trade deal with six Gulf states in what he described as a huge win for British business, ending four years of talks led by four different prime ministers.

The deal will offer £3.7bn worth of opportunities for exporters – double the original estimates – particularly in the food and luxury car sectors but also defence, aerospace, hospitality and other services, the government said.