35 h. ago Rachel Reeves seized her moment – whatever the future brings, Labour’s economic course is now set | Martin Kettle

The chancellor is no mere technocrat: her spending review revealed a visceral commitment to social and economic mobilityThe consensus has long been that the 2025 spending review would be a defining moment for Keir Starmer’s government. For once, the consensus proved spot-on. The government’s main priorities were set out on Wednesday in a blizzard of Commons announcements from Rachel Reeves, some economically substantive, others more for show. The upshot is that the shape of the British state, as Labour intends it, is now decided until the eve of the next election.There are further crossroads still to come, some of them major, as the years covered by the review unroll. Taxes are likely to rise, probably as soon as the autumn budget, to pay for Reeves’s big ticket boosts on Wednesday for defence, health and housing. Council tax could rise too, with possibly dramatic results. The review’s emphasis on capital spending means current spending could be squeezed again, perhaps heralding pay...

Economics

55 h. ago The Spin | Chipboard and carpet: refugee cricket tournament brings a moment of happiness

In the current wild and fragmented landscape, there is comfort in the sport’s ability to bring hope and communityNext week in Caen, at a baseball practice ground, on a pitch made out of two pieces of chipboard with some carpet stapled on top, a cricket tournament will unroll. Nine teams of refugees, mostly based in Normandy, will fight it out over two days in a series of round-robin T5 tape-ballgames.The battles will be fierce, the bowling often fast, with added jeopardy if the ball hits the not-very-well-disguised join between the two bits of chipboard. Chris Drew, a Guardian reader who lives locally, will umpire. “You watch county cricket and there is time,” he says via video call from France. “Time is one thing that you don’t have here. It is hit, it is whack, it is run, it is bowl – it is quite something. When they whack the ball, it stays whacked. There are no defensive shots. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago Voices: Why my friend Greta Thunberg had no choice but to sail an aid boat to Gaza

If I know anything about Greta, it is that she would want this moment to bring light to the ongoing repression and human rights violations of Palestinian civilians, writes fellow youth climate campaigner Scarlett Westbrook

Politics

7 d. ago Death is not the end! From the new robot Walt Disney to Mountainhead, movies are fuelled by immortality

Transhumanism has long propelled films from Metropolis to The Matrix. But Jesse Armstrong’s billionaire satire isn’t sci-fi fantasy. Nor is the ‘robotic Grampa’ Disney’s granddaughter so despisesFor years, the world’s most perfect urban myth was this: Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically frozen at the moment of death, waiting for technology to advance enough to bring him back to life. Started by a National Spotlite reporter who claimed to have sneaked into a hospital in 1967, only to be confronted by the sight of Disney suspended in a cryogenic cylinder, the myth prevailed because it was such a good fit.Disney – and therefore Walt Disney himself – was the smiling face of rigidly controlled joy, radiating a message of mandatory fun that is magical when you are a child and increasingly sinister as you age. This policy (essentially “enjoy yourself or else”) suits the idea of cryogenic preservation. After all, if you have the ego to successfully enforce a blanket emotion as a company mi...

Events

2 w. ago Young boy brings his mam to tears in beautiful moment that captured Welsh hearts

One little boy stole hearts when he emotionally told audiences "I love my mam loads"

Politics

3 w. ago ‘We are a passionately multiracial team’: Zimbabwe return to England transformed

Visitors have endured political chaos and miserable results over 22 years but cricket is finally a national gameTwenty-two years is a long time, even in a sport that measures its games in days and its history in centuries. The last time England played a Test match against Zimbabwe, in 2003, Rob Key was in the middle order instead of the managing director’s job, Jimmy Anderson was a 20-year-old tearaway playing in his very first series, and the England and Wales Cricket Board was just about to launch the world’s very first professional Twenty20 tournament. Zimbabwean cricket has changed, too. Back then the team was in the earliest stages of a transformation that was meant to turn cricket from a minority game, played by the small white population, into a sport that better represented the whole country.They have been hard years, riven by player strikes, political interference, maladministration, and a miserable drop-off in results. The team temporarily withdrew from Test cricket, suspe...

Politics

4 w. ago Dramatic moment cops drag drowned blind man from canal and bring him back to life with CPR

This is the dramatic moment police in Florida pull an unresponsive blind man from a canal and revive him with CPR.

Events

last month The future of Frieze: will its $200 million sale transform the art fair?

The sale of Frieze to new owner Ari Emanuel marks a huge moment for the art fair but brings up questions around what the future looks like for what is now a glamorous, global brand

Economics