16 h. ago Farm tax is risk to UK food security, says former foreign secretary

James Cleverly spoke after farmers parked two vintage tractors in London as part of a protest by Save British Farming against tax changes.

Events

25 h. ago Ian Rankin: John Rebus author caught on underground train during Portugal power outage

Crime author Ian Rankin has been caught up in the mass power blackout in Portugal

Events

29 h. ago Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn review – troubled minds and family mysteries

The Patrick Melrose author brings his trademark dark wit and flinty compassion to this wide-ranging sequelEdward St Aubyn’s previous novel, 2021’s Double Blind, was something of a challenge even for his devotees. Leaving aside the usual gripe that he is never quite as compelling without the shield of his authorial alter ego Patrick Melrose, the obsessive nature of the book’s inquiry into bioethics, narcosis, psychotherapy, oncology, venture capitalism and inheritance made too heady a cocktail to be more than sipped, a few pages at a time. I struggled with it until the very last scene, a charity bash where a schizophrenic young man takes his first terrified steps in employment as a waiter and happens upon a woman who, unknown to both, is intimately related to him. Their chance encounter was intensely moving and tautly suspenseful – you felt an immediate longing to know what would befall them.That longing is now answered in Parallel Lines, which picks up the narrative five years later...

Events

42 h. ago Even Tesla drivers seem to hate Elon Musk. Their honking protest warms the heart | Zoe Williams

The demonstration outside the Tesla showroom in west London was one of the smallest I have seen. But everyone who passed by was keen to show their supportPark Royal is the worst underground station in London and therefore the world. You come out of a stubby 1930s entrance hall that must have been cute once, right on to a dual carriageway. There’s a hotel on the other side of the road, and a tourist will most likely approach you, asking how she’s supposed to cross, and your answer will be just a sub-verbal collapse into nothingness. There is no obvious way to cross the road. This place was built for cars, and if you’re not a car, you’re stuck in a tube station now. There is actually an underpass, but that’s no excuse for dystopian urban planning.I was there helping the Stop Trump Coalition make a video before the US president’s state visit, whenever that might be, and they were there to see Tesla Takedown, which is not as antagonistic as it sounds, just a score of people, one dressed...

Events

42 h. ago I went to a Tesla protest this weekend – here’s what I learned | Zoe Williams

The demonstration outside the Tesla showroom in west London was one of the smallest I have seen. But everyone who passed by was keen to show their supportPark Royal is the worst underground station in London and therefore the world. You come out of a stubby 1930s entrance hall that must have been cute once, right on to a dual carriageway. There’s a hotel on the other side of the road, and a tourist will most likely approach you, asking how she’s supposed to cross, and your answer will be just a sub-verbal collapse into nothingness. There is no obvious way to cross the road. This place was built for cars, and if you’re not a car, you’re stuck in a tube station now. There is actually an underpass, but that’s no excuse for dystopian urban planning.I was there helping the Stop Trump Coalition make a video before the US president’s state visit, whenever that might be, and they were there to see Tesla Takedown, which is not as antagonistic as it sounds, just a score of people, one dressed...

Politics

52 h. ago ‘A mix of vaudeville and David Lynch’: the hit play about a giant rabbit on a psychoanalyst’s couch

Booker-nominated writer Deborah Levy is thrilling audiences with her play about a psychoanalyst dealing with a very unusual patient, seized with anxiety about modern life. She explains how it came aboutTwo years ago, Deborah Levy came across a cartoon that sparked her imagination. It featured a Freud-like figure sitting opposite a rabbit on an analyst’s couch. Levy, a three-times Booker nominated novelist and award-winning author of nonfiction, had began her career as a playwright but had not written a script for 25 years until she came across the image. “As soon as I saw it,” she says, “I heard dialogue in my mind: a conversation, a serious, difficult conversation between a professor and a rabbit, about contemporary anxiety. I knew it was a play,” says Levy.The premise may seem absurd but that is precisely the point – absurdism is a way of dealing with themes that have proved, in the wider world, divisive and even explosive to debate. Because the two-hander includes a rabbit, it ma...

Events

2 d. ago Who are UK Youth Demand? Protesters disrupt London Marathon and vow to 'shut down' city

UK Youth Demand admitted to being behind the powder protest, disrupting the London Marathon. Here, we take a look at the group who are connected to Just Stop Oil

Events

3 d. ago London Marathon crashed by protest as police wrestle paint throwers from Tower Bridge

London Marathon crashed by protest as police wrestle paint throwers from Tower Bridge  Daily Express

Events

3 d. ago Driver ‘faces off’ with Just Stop Oil protesters on ‘last day of action’

Just Stop Oil announced the group would stop direct action after it had won its demand to end new oil and gas.

Events

4 d. ago How motherhood changes the way women listen: An extract from Alice Vincent’s new book

In her third book, bestselling author Alice Vincent tries to reconnect with lost parts of herself through sound. In this chapter, she speaks with Mercury Prize-nominated musician Bat for Lashes about why becoming a mother alters how – and what – we hear

Politics

4 d. ago When and where are Just Stop Oil holding their final protest in London this weekend?

Radical eco group to hold one more rally and ‘go out in blaze of orange’

Events

5 d. ago The tragic past of the Harry Potter star 'standing by JK Rowling': Afshan Azad was forced to flee from family after her brother assaulted her for 'having a Hindu boyfriend'

Afshan, now 37, shot to fame after she was cast as teenage witch Padma Patil in the Harry Potter film adaptations based on controversial author JK Rowling's bestselling books.

Events

6 d. ago Best photos of April 24: Climate protest in London to astronauts in China

Best photos of April 24: Climate protest in London to astronauts in China  thenationalnews.com

Events

6 d. ago Trans protest to be held in Birmingham following rallies in London and Edinburgh

Organisers said the aim of the rally is to show solidarity with transgender people.

Events

6 d. ago Collective licence to ensure UK authors get paid for works used to train AI

A pioneering alternative to the opt-out system proposed by the government is supported by publishers and writers and is set to be available for use this summerUK licensing bodies have announced a “pioneering” collective licence that will allow authors to be paid for the use of their works to train generative AI models.The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) – which is directed by the Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS) and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), representing publishers and authors – will develop the licence, set to be the first of its kind in the UK. Continue reading...

Culture

6 d. ago Residents block London street to stop controversial £650,000 plan to replace parking spaces with benches

Locals sealed off the road with fake crime scene tape to stop council employees from entering to start on scheme

Economics

7 d. ago Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman review – why you quit your job to make the world a better place

A bracingly hopeful call for high-flyers to ditch corporate drudgery in favour of something far more ambitiousThis is not a self-help book,” the author tells us, firmly. Appearances might suggest otherwise: it is written and presented almost entirely in the familiar style of that genre, with largish print, short sentences, snappy maxims in italics and lots of lists and charts (“six signs you may be on the wrong side of history”). Its proposals are delivered with all the annoyingly hectic bounciness of the genre.But it is worth taking Bregman (a thirtysomething historian and author labelled “one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers” by the Ted network) at his word. He begins from the deep and corrosive anomie experienced by so many gifted young professionals who find themselves making substantial sums of money in exhausting and (at best) morally compromising jobs. The “moral ambition” of the title is about recognising that serious financial, organisational, technological an...

Politics

7 d. ago Trans rights rally placards should be investigated by Met, policing minister says

Placards carried at a trans rights protest in London over the weekend should be investigated by the Metropolitan Police, the policing minister has said.

Politics

7 d. ago Book festival back in Stirling with host of events including top authors and even cookery

The popular Off the Page festival returns for 2025 with an exciting new programme - including an art workshop led by a children's book illustrator and a live demonstration from a Masterchef finalist and author.

Culture

7 d. ago Protest march police who face 'trial by social media' should be given mental health support, says report

Public order police ‘handing in their tickets’ to avoid demonstrations

Events