Summer 2025 was marked by a surge in anti-immigrant protests, attacks on mosques and racist graffiti across the UK. The unrest, stoked by far-right agitators such as Tommy Robinson, sought to pit communities against each other. But in Luton, where Tommy Robinson himself grew up, writer and journalist Taj Ali explores how the communities of his home town have resisted this division and fought back against radicalisation; and asks whether today’s economic hardships threaten to unravel that progress

To focus on individuals is misguided: the problem is a tax system hugely skewed in favour of the ultra-wealthy

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It’s been tiresome to see the glee with which Angela Rayner’s been accused of hypocrisy this week, but then anyone who sticks their neck out to call for an end to this engine of wealth inequality gets the same battering. Millionaires who’ve seen first-hand just how completely the system is rigged in their favour, who know how wrong it is and want to change it, get a similar verbal beating on social media and in certain sections of the press. It’s almost as if they protest too much?

Take this week’s political tax stories, one big and one largely ignored. Rayner’s tax behaviour, through lack of proper advice and planning, has created a political nightmare for the government. How could someone on the frontbench of the Labour government have to resign because they didn’t pay enough tax? Also scrutinised, if far less widely reported, have been the tax practices of the leader of Reform UK, who is reported to have channelled some of his earnings into a company to reduce the tax he has to pay on them, having previously criticised people who try to avoid tax as the “common enemy”.

Rebecca Gowland is executive director of Patriotic Millionaires International

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Whether you’re looking for a trim or a total restyle, top hairstylists reveal how to get the best cut for you

Some people love going to the hairdresser while others dread it. How can you make the most of your visit and achieve the best possible look? Stylists share their tips for getting a cut that suits you – and avoiding a hairdo disaster.

The Eat Pray Love author’s account of her relationship with her late partner Rayya is solipsistic and self-indulgent

The first chapter of Elizabeth Gilbert’s much anticipated new memoir closes on a four-page love letter to Gilbert from her late partner Rayya, who, dead for five years, comes to her in a “visitation”. In Rayya’s voice, Gilbert calls herself babe, baby, or “sunshine baby” multiple times, emotes in all-caps, and grants herself permission to write the details of Rayya’s terrible, humiliating final year. “Let me just look at you for a minute,” “Rayya” says to Liz. “Look at your little rainbow eyes! Look at your sparkling tears! You’re so beautiful!” The letter is deeply self-indulgent and excruciating to read. “You’re going all the fucking way this time – all the way to the enlightenment.”

I believe that the dead are gone and that artists don’t need their permission to evoke them. But I was stunned that this solipsistic mess opens the book, because Gilbert is a terrific storyteller – Eat Pray Love, her memoir of self-acceptance and healing, was read by millions. So, I scrubbed the false start from my mind, reminding myself that great literature shows people as they are, which means that at some point in every good memoir, we should see the narrator being awful.

Soap-based injuries, bleak festive deaths, Hugh Bonneville vomiting blood: we look back on 15 years of highs and lows as the frothy period drama comes to an end with its final spin-off film

Prepare for stiff upper lips to wobble. Clutch monogrammed hankies for period-appropriate eye-dabbing. After 15 years on our screens, the Downton Abbey saga is about to hop in its vintage Rolls and drive off into the soft-focus sunset. The third and final film spin-off, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, is released this Friday, accompanied by a forelock-tugging farewell ITV documentary.

For six series, Downton bestrode the Sunday night schedules like a Grade II-listed colossus. Writer Julian Fellowes’s upstairs-downstairs creation followed entitled aristos and their salt-of-the-earth servants at a fictional country pile. Sure, the dialogue was clumsy, the plots soapy and the historical exposition clunked like a stately home’s antique radiators. Yet somehow, it didn’t matter.

The crowd that gathers in Amsterdam is exuberant. Pornography use is more common than ever, so earnings for many here are through the roof. But there is trouble afoot, from AI to chronic illness …

Brittany Andrews, a cheerful American porn star, cuts to the chase in her workshop on how to succeed in the adult industry.

“Do you think about how much money you’re going to make before you make a clip? Do you know what stuff sells the best? Or do you just follow your creative spark?” she asks. She points to a young Ukrainian model in a gold sequined bra and denim shorts. “I’m starting with you, girlfriend!”

Foreign Office says extent of US ambassador’s friendship with disgraced financier not disclosed when he was appointed

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Keir Starmer has sacked Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US over his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs that Mandelson had not disclosed the extent and depth of his friendship with Epstein, a convicted child sex offender, when he was appointed as the ambassador.

In an address delivered before the person who killed Kirk had even been identified, Donald Trump blamed ‘the radical left’ for the shooting

A UK offshoot of a US conservative group set up by Charlie Kirk is to hold a vigil in London after he was shot dead, reports the PA news agency.

Turning Point UK has said its activists will gather on Friday evening by the Montgomery statue in Whitehall and called on others to “join us in remembering Charlie”.

It’s absolutely shocking, we’re heartbroken over here in the UK.

My thoughts this evening are with the loved ones of Charlie Kirk.

It is heartbreaking that a young family has been robbed of a father and a husband.

Political violence has no place in our societies.

Our thoughts and condolences are with his family.

An atrocious murder, a deep wound for democracy and for those who believe in freedom.

My condolences to his family, to his loved ones, and to the American conservative community.

Police investigate after images show the office burnt out and roof destroyed in Washington, Tyne and Wear

Police are investigating a suspected arson attack on the office of the Labour MP Sharon Hodgson.

Images show her constituency office in Washington, Tyne and Wear burnt out and the roof destroyed.

MP’s withdrawal along with Paula Barker clears way for contest between Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell

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Emily Thornberry has withdrawn from the Labour deputy leadership race, clearing the way for a two-way fight between the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, and the former Commons leader Lucy Powell.

The MP for Islington South and Finsbury announced on Thursday that while she was “deeply grateful to all the Labour members who have shared their support”, she had decided to pull out.