To kick off Making Love, our new series in which the stars behind TV’s hottest relationships relive their romances, Mathew Horne and Joanna Page talk about meeting the one, snogs with strangers – and saving people’s lives

It’s a classic romcom story: Essex boy from Billericay meets Welsh girl from Barry, they declare their love in a coach station, he proposes in a train station before being dragged away by police and – with the help of a fake-vegetarian mum, a crackin’ friend who had a fling with John Prescott and a top-secret fishing trip – they win the hearts of the nation.

Gavin & Stacey was the 2007 love child of Ruth Jones and James Corden, following the ordinary couple played by Mathew Horne and Joanna Page. Their mates Nessa (Jones) and Smithy (Corden) became the “will they/won’t they?” relationship of the show – and Gavin’s parents, Pam (Alison Steadman) and Mick (Larry Lamb), were proof of everlasting love – but Gavin and Stacey were the pair we could all relate to. So much so that they are regularly voted one of Britain’s ultimate TV couples.

Scientists are trying to recreate the biology that lets animals survive months without food or water, in hopes of making deep-space travel possible

Long-term space travel is bad for your health. Very bad. Being in space exposes humans to dangerously high levels of radiation; extended exposure to microgravity can damage a range of organ systems, including muscles, bones and eyes. Living for months or years in tight quarters can have severe psychological effects.

The key to solving these problems could be a 250m-year-old physiological strategy that allows mammals, birds, fish and other animals to survive extreme scarcity by essentially going offline: hibernation. When they hibernate, animals almost completely switch off their bodily functions; they don’t eat, drink or move, and just as importantly, aren’t hungry, or thirsty and don’t seem to suffer from the cold. This remarkable ability could prove crucial in helping humans get to Mars and beyond – and could also help save lives on Earth.

The striker is driven by a sense of destiny but to be remembered as an all-time great outside England requires big-game performances

Five days to win the Ballon d’Or. The way to do it: outshine Lionel Messi in Atlanta, then see off Kylian Mbappé or Lamine Yamal on Sunday. For Harry Kane, nothing will come without a fight. The England captain was doubted when he was a kid, back when the youth coaches at Tottenham wondered if it was worth keeping him, and he faces another seismic battle against Argentina on Wednesday.

This could be the crowning moment of Kane’s career. The Bayern Munich striker has enjoyed the season of his life, with more domestic trophies in the bag and 73 goals in 64 appearances for club and country. There are more steps to take, though. The chance to lead England into a first World Cup final abroad is within reach. All Kane has to do to is outperform the greatest footballer of all time.

World Cup victory for England next week could raise expectations the likely new prime minister can’t live up to

Andy Burnham yesterday got himself clear of the magic number – the 323 Labour MPs who had to support him to make any leadership challenge mathematically impossible. Half a week had gone by in limbo, his endorsements standing at 322, everyone knowing he was the next prime minister, nobody able to call it anything more than “likely”. What were those last MPs waiting for? Maybe they were just in it for the atmospherics.

You can’t run a coronation like a slam dunk; it needs choreographed suspense, a sense of ceremony. In an ideal world, the last names would have arrived in the form of a wax-sealed letter, carried by a horse or a bird.

The Piano director shares her memories of the actor on set – and the last time she saw him in hospital

• Sam Neill’s final interview and his life in pictures

• ‘A true gentleman’: actors, directors and leaders pay tribute to Sam Neill

• Neill interviewed in 2023, 2024 and 2026

Sam. So effortlessly handsome, and that rare thing in New Zealand and Australia: a movie star.

My hands actually shook when I met him at a cafe in Vulcan Lane, Auckland, to discuss rehearsals. He had arrived, we all had, to start pre-production on The Piano. He was to play the repressed and violent Stewart, the one who would chop off his wife’s finger. Who but Sam could play that part, could surprise with that part?

Last week’s Timms report shows how disability is still vilified. But some pragmatic fixes would help both claimants and the economy

“Broken Britain” has become the favourite narrative of the right in recent months. The playbook goes like this: politicians and pundits alike exploit genuine concerns about squeezed services and living standards to propagate a sense of division and despair. Meanwhile, the parts of the state that actually need radical change are then either ignored or misrepresented, if only because their worst impact tends to be felt by the very marginalised communities the hard right scapegoats.

Few areas demonstrate this more than the disability benefits system. Reading the damning Timms report – the government’s landmark review into the personal independence payment (Pip) in England and Wales – last week, I was struck by the gulf between reality and rhetoric. The disability benefits system is “not fit for purpose” and “dehumanising” for claimants, the report found, yet scroll through a news site or switch on talk radio and there’s tumbleweed when it comes to substantive ideas to reform it, especially from figures typically eager to declare the nation’s institutions at risk of imminent collapse.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Counter-terrorism police say that they are still working to establish the motive for the killing of the former government minister

In response to a question from Alec Shelbrooke (Con), Campbell said he was “totally unaware” not just of the wording of the Tory opposition day motion planned for tomorrow (see 1.04pm), but of the topic that it was going to cover. In a bid to convince MPs that this was not a lie, he said that he was standing at the despatch box and that MPs knew the importance of a minister “telling the absolute truth when they stand here”.

In the Commons, Alan Campbell, the leader of the house, has just announced there will be a change in parliamentary business tomorrow. Wednesday was set aside for an opposition day debate – a debate on a motion tabled by the Tories. Instead, there will be a general debate on the situation in Iran. There will also be a vote on the regulations banning support for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The government has a majority of more than 150 and it could not trust its MPs to vote the right way on that motion [delaying the recess], and it could not bear the idea of a new prime minister facing any scrutiny before September.

A prime minister, let me remind us all, who has been chosen by a coronation not a contest, with no known platform, almost no known policies, and no idea of his priorities or indeed his cabinet team.

Chair criticises use of ‘VIP lane’ to prioritise PPE contracts for companies with Tory connections in damning report

• ‘Catastrophic failure’: UK Covid families welcome inquiry findings on PPE

Boris Johnson’s government wasted £10bn of public money because of the flawed way it went about buying personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic, an official inquiry has concluded.

The Covid-19 inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, also criticised the then Conservative government’s controversial “VIP lane”, which gave high priority for PPE contracts to companies with political connections to the Tories.

US president claims shipping route is open for all except Iranian ships after another night of strikes on Iran

• US launches third night of strikes on Iran as Trump announces Hormuz blockade

Resurgent oil and fuel prices could cement a fourth interest rate rise in Australia this year if Donald Trump’s renewed conflict with Iran is not resolved within a week, economists warn.

US missile strikes on Iran and Trump’s announcement of a new maritime blockade has lifted oil prices to their highest point in the month since the two countries agreed to a peace deal.

Court ruled last week against policy to reduce protections for asylum seekers facing removal under one in, one out scheme

The Home Office is set to ignore a high court ruling and continue sending asylum seekers to France without looking into claims they have been trafficked, which last week was found to be unlawful.

On Friday Mr Justice Sheldon ruled against the home secretary’s policy to reduce protections for trafficking victims earmarked for forced removal to France. Home Office sources told the Guardian that operational activity could continue despite the ruling. Home Office removed certain protections for this group because they could delay removals to France by at least 30 days.