The latest character dressing trend may be a little silly but there’s an off-kilter pleasure in its mellow, vintage vibe

Welcome to the season of the Posh Grandpa, fashion’s newest main character. We’ve had Brat, we did Coastal Grandma, we loved Tomato Girl Summer. The world is pretty heavy right now, as you’ll have noticed, so any opportunity to lighten up is precious. The nonsense is the point.

Character dressing is style that makes you smile, but it’s not just that. There is infinitely more joy in these looks, however silly they are, than there is in aspiring to look rich and pretty, which is where the aesthetic centre of gravity of our culture swings back to again and again. The esoteric sides of fashion’s personality capture something important about style, which is that it needs a bit of friction to make it interesting. The pebble in the boot, the surprise to snag the eye. This is where the magic happens.

Why would Tory leader bother to look into national or global politics? That time would be better spent picking fights

Being assertive and sounding confident is always a good start. No leader of the opposition is going to get far without those qualities. And Kemi Badenoch certainly manages that. But winning at prime minister’s questions requires something more basic than that. Something fundamental. A very basic understanding of the facts.

Not just reading a headline in the papers and a few posts on social media. Not just listening to a junior minister sound a bit confused on the Today programme. You need to put in the hard yards. Or at least do some very elementary research. Otherwise you risk coming badly unstuck.

Cannes film festival: Sachs’ film about an HIV-positive actor in the homophobic Reagan-era 80s is well-intended, but Malek’s mannered performance is hard to love

This film from writer-director Ira Sachs gives us premium-strength, undiluted Rami Malek – but I have to say that his overripe performance and self-conscious mannerisms here are perhaps even more oppressively insistent for being conveyed relatively quietly in spoken dialogue. And not quietly at all in the singing scenes. Malek is a performer whose style is as distinctive as those of John Malkovich or Jeff Goldblum. But it works best with a light touch in the direction and material. Things never really come together here.

The Man I Love is a film about gay culture in 1980s New York, at the height of the reactionary homophobia of Reagan’s America, with HIV-positive men coming to terms with their condition and with the callous bigotry of the political zeitgeist. In one hospital scene, we see the authorities’ icily unsympathetic attitude. Malek plays Jimmy George, a much admired and charismatic actor and performance artist in New York who has just emerged from a three-week stay in hospital after a life-threatening HIV-related crisis. Now he is starring in a new stage piece based on André Brassard’s 1974 film Once Upon a Time in the East, playing the stormy and defiant Hélène, who sings with a band.

Whether it’s the traditional boiled diet, a dental epidemic or white-winged extremism, Patrick Gathara explains why political turmoil is engulfing the UK

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The UK has been in a state of political crisis for months, but recent local elections have resulted in the most serious challenge yet to the country’s prime minister and ruling elites, with experts predicting the UK could be facing its sixth regime change in 10 years amid “tribal disputes and separatist movements.”

To make sense of it all, I spoke to the Nairobi-based British affairs satirist Patrick Gathara about the future of the “island Kingdom of Britain”.

From synthpop to drum’n’bass, the company had a roster of edgy stars – and let them do what they wanted. As a new podcast is launched, artists and staff remember the extreme work environment

‘My eyes have started to fucking flicker because you just mentioned London Records,” says Goldie, having an involuntary physical reaction at the mere thought of his old label. “If a nightclub could be a record company, it would have been London Records. It was the equivalent of Studio 54. It looked like a normal record company from the outside – shiny, lots of nice cars on the driveway – but it was the craziest, most hedonistic madness.”

A new six-part podcast, Hit That Perfect Beat – The London Records Story, is delving into its colourful history. The label was originally part of Decca Records, once home to the likes of the Rolling Stones, but when Decca was acquired by Polygram in 1980, London began a new chapter as an independent label operating with major label distribution. “We were put in there to develop it into a pop label,” recalls ex-managing director Colin Bell, who was a pivotal figure alongside Roger Ames and Tracy Bennet. “We were obsessed with being cool. We wanted to be easily identifiable for a generation of young people. We wanted pop that had an edge.”

Plants whose beauty is flawed carry a message in Children’s Society garden, a gold medal winner at Chelsea flower show

Gardens do not have to be perfect to be beautiful – and neither do teenagers. That is the central message behind the Children’s Society garden, which has won a gold medal at this year’s RHS Chelsea flower show. And prickly poppies, a bird’s nest fern planted in a drain and verbascum arcturus, a delicate-looking yellow flower with hairy stems, are among the plants chosen to convey it – plants whose beauty is flawed.

“The overlaying narrative of the garden is ‘beauty in imperfection’,” said the designer, Patrick Clarke. “Perfection is the most debilitating thing for young people because it’s something that is unattainable, and when they’re bombarded with images of perfection on social media … that is very, I think, threatening to people’s mental health.”

Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor understood to support home secretary’s push to limit legal and illegal migration

Andy Burnham is backing Shabana Mahmood’s controversial changes to the immigration system, his allies have said, in a blow to those in Labour who hope to soften them.

The Greater Manchester mayor is understood to be keen to reframe the changes but supportive of the home secretary’s attempts to limit legal and illegal migration, which have been criticised by some senior Labour MPs as un-British and mimicking Trump.

Far-right figure Itamar Ben-Gvir shares footage of himself taunting bound international detainees

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Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid.

Three activists were hospitalised as result of Israeli violence, lawyers representing the group said. They were subsequently discharged. Dozens of others have suspected broken ribs, resulting in breathing problems.

Father describes Jane Adetoro, Christina Walters and Rebecca Walters as ‘the beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love’

Three women whose bodies were recovered from the sea off Brighton beach were sisters described by their father as the “beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love”.

Emergency services were called after concerns were raised for a person’s welfare at about 5.45am on 13 May, before three bodies were pulled from the water near Madeira Drive.

Chancellor launches ‘Great British summer savings scheme’ after Keir Starmer postpones fuel duty increase

• Planned fuel duty rise to be scrapped, says Keir Starmer

Rachel Reeves is to promise free summer bus rides for children and cut tariffs on some food imports, as part of a package of measures aimed at easing the costs of the Iran conflict.

The chancellor will give a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, outlining her latest plans for cushioning the blow to consumers from an expected rise in inflation later this year.