After 18 months of policy U-turns and political turmoil we are told not to expect any last-minute policy rabbits

Politicians tend to hate being boring but Rachel Reeves will be delighted if Tuesday’s spring forecast is judged by voters and financial markets to be reassuringly dull.

After Labour’s catastrophic Gorton and Denton byelection result, the chancellor’s future, along with that of the prime minister, is on the line, as backbench MPs fret about the party’s electoral prospects.

In Gorton and Denton, I heard again and again that people wanted seismic political change – Labour and the Tories are no longer part of that conversation

In the wake of Labour’s third-place showing at last Thursday’s Gorton and Denton byelection, Keir Starmer could have responded with a mixture of magnanimity, grit, and a clear appreciation of what had just happened.

He might have congratulated the Green party’s new MP Hannah Spencer, and insisted that the themes of inequality and everyday struggle she had so loudly emphasised throughout the campaign were at the top of his government’s priorities. He could also have combined that message with a show of determination to learn from the defeat and win back the voters his party lost, and an acknowledgment that Labour’s recent calamities and internal bickering had sent those people completely the wrong signals.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

With the rise of influencer Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxers’, sexist language from niche memes has infiltrated official government accounts and NYT headlines

A recent tweet from the US Department of Defense boasts about the killing capabilities of the US military as follows: “Low cortisol. Locked in. Lethalitymaxxing”. To many, that will sound as indecipherable as the teenagers that discuss “high-tier Beckys” or the New York Times warning of “Tate-pilled” boys.

Many will have now seen the 6 February tweet that went globally viral, viewed more than 24m times and since discussed in endless analyses and explainers:

Clavicular was mid jestergooning when a group of Foids came and spiked his Cortisol levels. Is Ignoring the Foids while munting and mogging Moids more useful then SMV chadfishing in the club?

From live audio descriptions to fabric swatch booklets, designers including Chet Lo are rethinking the catwalk experience for blind and low-vision clothes-lovers

‘If you put your hands out and run your fingers along this skirt, you’ll feel that there are soft feathers appliquéd on to it,” says the fashion designer Chet Lo. “The skirt is emerald green in colour with black panels on the side and it is designed to be very fitted on the body.” Lo is speaking to a group of six guests ahead of his London fashion week show, offering them a sneak preview of his new collection that will shortly be unveiled on the catwalk.

Chet Lo shows his Night Market collection at the Mandarin Oriental hotel at London fashion week

Their actions are no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo

We shouldn’t beat around the bush: Donald Trump’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s military attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression. There is no lawful justification for it. It is no different from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations charter allows the use of military force in only two circumstances – with authorization of the UN security council, or as self-defense from an actual or imminent armed attack. Neither was present.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

We may cringe at influencers and friends who let it all hang out, but research shows that keeping quiet might be worse

Do you recoil at oversharers on social media, or joke among your friends about “TMI”? I know I do. But while mocking public confession comes easy, it’s harder to appreciate the risks of normalising silence: withheld anxieties, unspoken family histories, and the little omissions that make workplaces and relationships brittle. The instinct to pour scorn on “attention seekers” may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment.

For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don’t put your passwords in a document, don’t take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don’t broadcast things you can’t take back. I was a walking contradiction, though. Privately, I did online quizzes for fun. I kept a notepad of passwords on my desktop. I knew the rules and, like many of us, I broke them.

US president signals willingness to engage with Tehran’s surviving leadership as strikes and retaliatory attacks intensify across region

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

Donald Trump said on Sunday he was prepared to talk to what was left of the Iranian leadership in the wake of the killing of the country’s supreme leader by US-Israeli air strikes aimed at overthrowing the regime.

Trump was speaking as a second day of intense bombing of Iranian cities and Tehran’s missile counter-attacks sent tremors across the region and through the global economy.

US president says ‘it’s always been about a four-week process so - as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks - or less’ and that he’s agreed to talk with Iran

• Podcast: The assassination of Iran’s ayatollah – and fears for a wider conflict

• How have you been affected by events in the Middle East?

Loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP reported. Thick black smoke was rising from the airport area.

On Saturday, US-led coalition forces downed several missiles and explosive-laden drones over Erbil.

About 200,000 nationals thought to be in the region as tensions rise after US-Israeli attacks on Iranian regime

• US-Israeli war on Iran: latest updates

The Foreign Office is drawing up plans to evacuate tens of thousands of British citizens if war in the Middle East escalates, with many travellers currently stranded in Dubai.

Keir Starmer said on Sunday that about 200,000 British people are in the region, on holiday or otherwise travelling across the Gulf. He urged everyone in areas targeted by Iranian strikes to register with the Foreign Office to receive advice, with about 94,000 doing that so far.

Retaliatory strikes have so far been high in volume but mostly not very effective and are likely to become less so

• US-Israel war on Iran – latest updates

In the grim calculus of war, Iran now has to hope it gets lucky. The first hours of the joint US-Israeli assault were catastrophic for the regime: the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, killed alongside, it is believed, the minister of defence, the head of the armed forces and the head of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

Iran knew its security apparatus had been compromised during the 12-day war of June 2025 when Israel killed a string of senior military commanders. During January’s street protests, Khamenei was moved away to a secure location for his own safety, yet on Saturday he felt safe enough to hold a security meeting in his compound in Tehran.