The Tory leader’s appearance on the Today programme was sheer madness – and comedy gold

Cast your mind forward 10 years or so. Long after Kemi Badenoch has been sacked as Tory party leader without even getting to contest an election. Long after she has been fired from a sinecure in an HR firm for falling out with all her colleagues. Long after she was dismissed from a Tory thinktank for being unable to think. Long after she was forced to take early retirement.

You might think Kemi’s name would be long forgotten by then. But you would be wrong. Because her name will live for evermore. Six years from now a group of psychiatrists and psychotherapists will gather in May for what will become the most oversubscribed symposium in the history of medical and therapeutic science. Freudians, Jungians, Kleinians, cognitive behaviourists, psychodynamic and systemic therapists. The lot. Everyone will be there. Trying to make sense of the most intriguing problem to have troubled shrinks everywhere. Who or what is Kemi? More importantly, why is Kemi?

Primary School Bangers caused a sensation on TikTok, then at Glastonbury, and now it’s gone nationwide. Is it harmless nostalgia – or a symptom of an increasingly conservative culture?

He’s got the whole Warwick Arts Centre in his hands. It’s Friday night and the 550-capacity venue is sold out. The theatre is full of adults singing the school assembly hymns you may remember from childhood. They are rising and shining, conducting gleeful hand actions of wiggly worms and fish in the sea. Just what is going on?

James B Partridge’s Primary School Bangers is the hit show that is storming UK arts centres, originally a viral video that has become a defiantly IRL phenomenon. “It just brings back memories of primary school, sitting in the hall,” enthuses Hayley, 40. She is one of many teachers attending tonight. “We don’t sing in primary schools much any more,” mourns Katie, 33. She is right: in the 2010s, funding cuts, Conservative policy and a crisis in teacher retention caused an ongoing fall in music at primary level. At her school, children sing just once every three weeks. Some of tonight’s pull is communal. “You go to a show and you have to sit and watch,” says Frank, 61, “but you’re actually participating in this, that’s the big difference.”

Harris’s 2024 campaign lacked authenticity and conviction. We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you today. The bad news is, well, everything. As you may have noticed, the world is on fire. The good news, however, is that a savior may be at hand. Kamala Harris, a politician who has never won a presidential primary and lost the popular vote to Donald Trump in 2024, hasn’t ruled out running for president again.

Harris has kept a fairly low profile since November 2024, focusing most of her energy on promoting 107 Days, her account of her truncated presidential run, and appearing as the guest of honour at the 2025 Australian Real Estate Conference. But she has also made it clear that she still has an eye on the White House: in an interview with the BBC last October, Harris said she was “not done” with politics and strongly suggested she might run for president again. Harris echoed these sentiments in a conversation with the podcaster Sharon McMahon last week. “I might,” she said when asked if she will run again.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Slow-burn office crushes that left you weeping, sitcoms that made you fall in love and vampire shows that changed you for ever: Guardian readers pick their ultimate television romances

A mark of a true romance is that the couple are closer than anyone else in the world. As Emily Brontë said, “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” This is true for Miss Piggy and Kermit. They’ve had a longer relationship than most TV couples (since 1976), although it has been tumultuous. No matter what universe, from Dickensian London to Treasure Island to their various TV shows and movies over the years, they find each other – even after their official separation in 2015. Did Ross ever say to Rachel: “You don’t need the whole world to love you, you just need one person”? I don’t think so. Michelle, 19, Manchester

Sleeveless knits, breton stripes and shoe charms … our fashion writers share their secrets to a budget-friendly, new-season refresh

• How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout

Think of your spring wardrobe as a dry run for summer. There are the occasional warm days – when you regret leaving the house with a coat – and, of course, no end of showers. There are even the odd times when you can almost get away without wearing tights, which opens you up to all manner of skirts and shoes.

Spring is blouson jacket season, and a good time to wear denim beyond jeans (how about a dress?). Now’s also the time to try a short(ish) skirt with socks and loafers, which is strangely wearable for something with its roots in Prada. How about a corset top that isn’t a corset, or wearing a Lanvin-style headscarf if you’re having a difficult hair day? And why not add a bag charm while you’re there? Think 2026 colours – difficult green, pops of cornflower instead of red, universally wearable lilac. Most of all, it’s about adding to what you already own, or styling it in a new way. Welcome to spring.

The teams meet again on Saturday and in 1982 it took three matches in nine days to find a winner

By That 1980s Sports Blog

In some ways, history is repeating itself. In 1982, Chelsea and Wrexham met in the FA Cup after they had beaten Hull and Nottingham Forest respectively in previous rounds. The same has happened in 2026; but this is where the similarities end.

When the clubs met 44 years ago they were in the second tier and had huge debts. With Chelsea reportedly £1.6m in the red, the future of Stamford Bridge was in doubt as property developers hovered. Relegation-threatened Wrexham spent most of the 1980s merely trying to survive.

Evacuation order issued for all of the southern suburbs with up to 700,000 people thought to be affected

• Tell us: how have you been affected by the latest events in the Middle East?

Iran says it has targeted Kurdish groups in Iraq and warned “separatist groups” against action in the widening war.

Tehran said on Thursday it had hit Iraq-based Kurdish groups “opposed to the revolution”, as reports said the US was looking to arm Kurdish militias to infiltrate Iran.

We will not tolerate them in any way.

PM defends decision not to join initial US-Israeli strikes and says UK is doing ‘everything we can’ to de-escalate situation

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Keir Starmer has said the conflict engulfing the Middle East could continue “for some time” as he insisted the best way forward in the longer term was a negotiated settlement with Iran.

The prime minister said the UK was doing “everything we can” to de-escalate the situation, a clear contrast to the US president, who is focused on regime change and has said it was “too late” for Tehran to negotiate.

A nationless ethnic group of more than 30 million people, their homegrown militia has a reputation as an effective fighting force

The Kurds are one of the biggest ethnic groups in the world without their own nation. Numbering between 30 and 40 million worldwide, most live amid the peaks and valleys straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

The Kurds link their history to that of the Medes, an ancient Middle Eastern people. They were left stateless a century ago when the borders of the modern Middle East emerged from the collapsing Ottoman empire. Repeatedly caught in the bloody political competition of a volatile region and often forced to rely on their homegrown militia, the peshmerga, for defence, the Kurds say their tough and often bloody history has taught them that they have “no friends but the mountains”.

Photojournalist Stefanie Glinski speaks to Iranian photographer Mohammad Mohsenifar, who has been documenting the attacks on the Iranian capital over the past week

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iranians woke up on Thursday to a new round of explosions in Tehran, on the sixth day of war since the US and Israel launched attacks that have so far killed more than 1,200 people, including the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The casualties include 168 children who were killed at a school in the southern province of Hormozgan; thousands more people have been injured.

People mourn the killing of Ali Khamenei along Enghelab Street in Tehran on Sunday