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The PM who turned PI: why is Gordon Brown delving so deep into the Epstein files?

Brown is said to be driven by moral anger but insiders suggest he may feel guilty for bringing Peter Mandelson back into government

Before Gordon Brown sent a draft of his 6 February comment piece on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to the Guardian for publication, he asked friends whether he had gone too far.

The former prime minister had written that he found it “hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics” and the “time is overdue to let in the light”.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 06:00:03 GMT
Nadiya Hussain on food, faith and finding her voice: ‘I get paid less than the white version of me’

After a decade at the top, the Bake Off winner is reclaiming her career and refusing to soften her edges. She discusses racism, gaslighting – and why comfort food is more important than ever

In a food world where the trend is for protein and weight-loss injections and sugar is the supervillain, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts seems somewhat contrary. There are golden syrup dumplings. There is a chapter devoted to deep frying, with cheese balls and ingenious deep-fried cannelloni.

“If I could write an entire book on deep frying, I absolutely would,” says Hussain with a laugh. “This is how I cook, this is how I eat, this is how I show love to my family. Everything in there is stuff that my kids absolutely love.” It’s about balance, she says – there are also lovely recipes for soothing plant-based dal and delicious noodles – because “I think anything that’s an extreme version of itself is dangerous”.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:00:03 GMT
I was at the Baftas – and while hearing the N-word was unsettling, all anger should be aimed at the BBC | Jason Okundaye

By failing to remove John Davidson’s tic from the broadcast, editors let down both black and disabled people

I attended the Bafta awards on Sunday. And I arrived early enough to hear the Tourette syndrome (TS) campaigner John Davidson, on whom the biographical film I Swear is based, be introduced. He stood up to wave and take in the applause, and we were told that due to his TS, we might expect to hear involuntary vocal outbursts, known as tics, and that we should understand that the Baftas are an inclusive space in which all people are welcome.

Perhaps half the people were listening, others would have been on their phones or engaged in mild chatter. But the tics were instantly audible. When the host, Alan Cumming, was on stage we heard “boring” and there was laughter. When the outgoing chair of Bafta, Sara Putt, was speaking, we heard “shut the fuck up” and there was a mix of knowing silence and confusion. But, as you all now know, it was when Sinners actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented an award that the tics transmuted from things that would be read as benignly antisocial to more outright offensive, as we heard the N-word. There were gasps and whispers of “did he just say … ?”

Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian

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.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:00:04 GMT
I suddenly went blind 2,000 miles from home – alone, penniless and confused

In 1990, Gary Williamson was 18, backpacking in Europe, when his vision began to fail. It was the start of a perilous journey

The first sign that something was wrong was the blurred text in the book Gary Williamson was reading. The problem with his vision had come on suddenly – the day before, it had been normal. Williamson thought perhaps he was tired, or run down. He was 18 and had arrived in Gibraltar after travelling through Europe for two weeks, sleeping rough and not eating or drinking properly. “I’ll go and get some water and something to eat. I thought: maybe it’s nothing. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. The next day, I woke up and it was bad again.” He remembers cautiously getting out his book to test his eyesight: “It’s actually getting worse. I can’t read it now. The lines were starting to blur.” He had relied on a map to get him that far. “I remember thinking: that’s going to become useless very soon. I need to work out what I’m doing.” He needed to get home.

It was 1990, and Williamson didn’t think to call home to ask for help. With no money left – he had made it to Gibraltar four days earlier with the intention to find work – he decided to hitch a lift, thinking a UK-bound lorry would be his best bet. He made it to the gates where the haulage lorries left the port, threw down his backpack by the side of the road and waited. None of the lorries stopped to pick him up. He was, he says, “panicking a little bit, thinking: what do I do? It was harder than I thought it was going to be.” Around 6pm, he gave up. He went back to where he had been sleeping, on a patch of sandy ground behind a sandwich stall over the Spanish border. Before he went to sleep, he wished that he would get a lift the next day, and that his eyesight wouldn’t be any worse. When he woke up, it was.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:00:03 GMT
Tracey Emin: A Second Life review – this show of undiluted love, heartache and pain left me a teary wreck

Tate Modern, London
Forget the sex and drugs of the 90s. This wildly emotional exhibition shows that Emin’s life’s work has been turning suffering into sculpture, insults into poetry – and agony into art

It feels as if you’re intruding. Walking into Tate Modern’s huge Tracey Emin retrospective is like walking in on her crying, naked, sobbing and snotty, as if you have stumbled into something painfully private.

That’s not an easy thing to pull off in the cavernous spaces of our leading contemporary art institution, but that’s what makes Tracey – it doesn’t feel right calling her Emin, she pulls you so close it’s like you know her, it’s Tracey isn’t it? – such a special, important, era-defining artist.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:00:07 GMT
Buy now, pay later: how to use it without getting into debt

BNPL can be a fee-free way to manage cashflow for an essential purchase but keep track of the payment schedule

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a form of credit that lets you spread payments for everything from clothes, jewellery and white goods to concert tickets, hotel rooms and takeaway meals.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:00:04 GMT
Gorton and Denton byelection campaign hits final day with new poll saying it is too close to call who will win – UK politics live

Opinium poll says it is ‘incredibly tight’ between Reform UK, Greens and Labour and all have a credible chance of winning

Ben Judah, a former aide to David Lammy when he was foreign secretary who has been vocal in the media recently defending the Chagos Islands deal, told Sky News this morning that he thought the treaty was “best placed on ice for the moment” because of President Trump’s recent comments criticising it. But he said “all logic” led to it being approved eventually.

He said:

The Labour government wanted to make sure that the Trump administration backed the deal, waited to proceed until it had taken the deal through a highly, highly extensive interagency process … getting everybody behind it.

And those big institutions of American power backed it. And they felt that they had a deal with Donald Trump.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:07:37 GMT
Energy bills will fall by £117 for millions of households in Great Britain from April

Ofgem cap drops by 7% to £1,641 a year for consumers’ average gas and electricity costs

Annual energy bills will fall by £117 for millions of households from April after Rachel Reeves’s plan to cut £150 a year from bills was partly foiled by rising costs.

The energy regulator Ofgem’s quarterly cap will fall by 7% a year for the three months from April to £1,641 for the average combined gas and electricity bill in Great Britain, from £1,758 under the current January-March cap.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:31:51 GMT
Members of Iran’s elite accused of hypocrisy over children’s lives in west

Opposition campaigners claim top figures in regime use state wealth to fund lifestyles counter to those they preach

Members of Iran’s ruling elite have been accused of brazen hypocrisy by allegedly using the state’s wealth to help to fund their adult children’s lives in the west while presiding over growing economic misery and repression at home.

Opposition campaigners made the accusation against some of the clerical regime’s most powerful figures as a military confrontation with the US appears increasingly likely. Donald Trump has deployed a vast armada in the Middle East and confirmed he is considering strikes.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:00:09 GMT
Trump claims host of successes and attacks old foes in longest State of the Union

President hails ‘turnaround for the ages’ but offers few policy pledges and repeats jibes against ‘crazy’ Democrats

Donald Trump proclaimed his first year in office a success at the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, even as his presidency is dogged by low public approval ratings before November’s midterm elections in which voters could hand control of Congress back to his Democratic opponents.

The annual address to a joint session of Congress came after months of turmoil for the Republican president, including a crackdown on immigrant communities in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens, and faltering progress on his campaign promise of lowering the cost of living.

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Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:37:47 GMT

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