Cheesemakers, farmers, exporters and wine merchants say red tape, lack of vision and rising costs mean they have stopped trading, sold up or retired early

Out of pocket, out of business, retired early. These are the tales of the “sunlit uplands” experienced by small-to-medium-sized businesses across Britain after Brexit.

Between 16,000 to 20,000 businesses stopped exporting to the EU altogether, but others who soldiered on complain Boris Johnson’s government catered for the “blue chips”, not the small, everyday companies when they designed the hard Brexit for Britain.

Glamorous, fashion-forward, fun – wigs are everywhere you look, with celebrities leading the way. But should you go for something flamboyant, or a more natural style? Time to test-drive a few

‘I think it’s the word – ‘wig’!” says Melanie Burrell, scrunching up her nose. “I prefer ‘hairpiece’.” It’s part of the reason why, when she opened her wig business in Glasgow in 2010, she called it Parrucche – the Italian word for “wigs” being a little more discreet, especially when it came to signage.

But the stigma once associated with wig wearing is quickly diminishing. Outside of Black and queer communities, where using hairpieces has long been commonplace, wigs were once associated with attempts to conceal hair-loss, or for fancy dress. But in recent years, their appeal has broadened. According to data insights company Statista, the global wigs and hair extensions market is predicted to reach $13.28bn this year. For men, toupees, now more commonly known as “hair systems”, are part of this resurgence.

Whether the money was a reward for Brexit or for personal security, media interest in it has intensifed as the Reform UK leader returns to the public eye

Having largely, and uncharacteristically, avoided media attention for much of the past couple of months – a period that has coincided with people asking some searching questions about the £5m given to him by a billionaire Reform backer – Nigel Farage returned to the airwaves on Tuesday.

If he had hoped broadcasters, and their listeners, had forgotten about the issue, he was sorely mistaken.

As a podcast host, I speak daily to people on both sides of the breakup. A decade after the referendum, it’s clear who’s moved on

Let’s imagine you’ve been dumped by someone you were expecting to stay with for the rest of your life. The breakup is bitter. The logistics, exhausting. The two of you spend an eternity negotiating who gets to keep the dog, the flat, the friends; it’s hard to imagine that things will ever feel normal again. But the years have a way of softening these things. Some years later, a photo of your ex flashes up on your social media feed. And suddenly, you realise you feel no grudge. In fact, you barely feel anything at all.

This is how it feels to be an EU citizen a decade after Brexit. As the host of a podcast called The Europeans, I talk to people across Europe on a daily basis. Nobody I speak to bears the United Kingdom – the country I called home until my late 20s – any ill will. They enjoy our films and our pop music (even though it’s harder to actually see British artists live); sometimes they go on weekend trips to London and come back complaining about how expensive it was.

The UK sure loves speculation about prime ministers. So here’s some more! But who makes the finest – Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Jane Horrocks or Alan B’Stard?

As the UK gets ready to have its seventh prime minister in 10 years, how long before a revolving door is installed at 10 Downing Street? As social media wags have pointed out, this is likely the first time in history that the UK has been looking for a new prime minister, James Bond and Time Lord at the same time.

With the tribute film Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’stard airing this week (Thursday at 9pm on Sky Documentaries) and Steven Moffat’s drama Number 10 coming soon to Channel 4, it’s time to conduct a poll on TV’s best fictional British PMs.

Should I follow the man of my dreams to work in a club in Tehran? Or take up a place at an elite university? Thankfully, my dad gave me advice I’ve lived by ever since

My parents did not expect me to land a place at university. I was not considered academic enough. And anyway, I was a girl. Instead, I was being primed for marriage. My mother didn’t see anything wrong with this. Born in Britain between the two world wars, when the scarcity of men had made them precious commodities, she had left school at 14, part of a generation often brought up to believe that matrimony was the only guarantee of a secure social and financial future. While romance and indeed love were a bonus, the unwritten clause in a marital contract stipulated that a wife must play her supportive part at home while the husband went out to work. Without the necessary qualifications for the role, the entire agreement risked failure.

In 1972, I was at college studying for my A-levels, but in the holidays my mother enlisted me on various “finishing” courses. Her intention was that I acquire the domestic skills to enhance my spousal eligibility, including how to cook, carve a roast and drive a Jeep to the shops, in case I landed a nice gentry farmer. Only now, almost 40 years after her death, do I realise how much she regretted the lack of educational and career opportunities open to her. Only now do I sympathise with her subconscious envy when they were offered to her daughter.

About 68,000 households lose electricity in northern France as Italy issues red alerts for 16 cities

• France records hottest day ever as 40 people drown across country

• Tell us: how is the heatwave in the UK and across Europe affecting you?

Grahame Madge, a Met Office spokesperson, said the agency is forecasting 39C as a headline maximum temperature on Thursday in the UK, most likely for somewhere in London or the south-east.

“It is possible we could see temperatures higher than the 39C if the final values are at the upper end of our narrow range,” he said, according to the Press Association.

Chief secretary to PM says he had been ‘reassured’ about Burnham’s economic plans after conversation with him

Andy Burnham has moved a step closer to becoming prime minister after Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, said he would not stand in a Labour leadership contest.

Jones, who had been mooted as a candidate who could put Burnham’s ideas to a test in a race, told Sky News that he had had a “reassuring conversation” with the newly elected MP for Makerfield about his economic policy plans.

Senior midwife Donna Ockenden investigated stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths, and babies or mothers who suffered brain damage and other injuries

• ‘Truly horrific’: five stories from the NHS maternity scandal

Speaking ahead of the publication of the report, Labour MP Michelle Welsh said it was “pure luck” that her own baby had survived birth.

“When it comes to luck, as to whether your baby survives or not, then that is a true indication of a system that is truly, truly failing,” the MP for Sherwood Forest and the government’s first maternity adviser told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

I feel that there is a momentum. I do feel that there is a will.

I mean, I absolutely make sure that I am listened to. I haven’t got in within those doors to sit there quiet and just nod my head. I’m absolutely out there, at the forefront, being very, very loud and clear about the fact that we do need the funding.

JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg fails to advance in election to replace Jerry Nadler in Manhattan district

Zohran Mamdani’s growing influence over the Democratic party was on show in New York City on Tuesday as three congressional candidates endorsed by New York’s democratic socialist mayor won closely watched primaries, while voters in Maryland, Utah and South Carolina cast ballots in primaries and runoffs.

Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who also ran for mayor last year before endorsing Mamdani, won his race comfortably, defeating the Democratic representative Dan Goldman.