Russell T Davies channels Black Mirror in a story of AI, shallow social media, and posh white supremacy. But, naturally, with added slug monsters

“Oh my hopscotch!”, as Lindy Pepper-Bean might say. The on-screen lead for much of this episode, Callie Cooke, is surely one of the most dislikeable human characters Doctor Who has ever produced. She is vain, shallow, self-absorbed and manipulative, and not afraid to cause her idol, Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries), to die, and then lie about it. Regardless of the presence of the slug monsters, she is undoubtedly the villain of the piece.

It was strikingly stylised, and unusual to see an episode of Doctor Who mostly colour-graded to be pastel pinks and blues until the final subterranean act. The obvious target was the vacuousness of much of social media, but writer Russell T Davies struck out at wider themes, including the idea that AI might come to hate humans, and the arrogant privilege that comes with being, as Ruby Sunday put it, the “rich kids”. The inhabitants of Finetime had been sent off to a posh offworld boarding school and apprentice scheme for the wealthy and conventionally attractive, where they mostly partied. “Some of us get eaten” was both factually true for the story, and a bleakly observant pun for the viewer. Some people do get Eton.

The prime minister said if Starmer was elected then he would also pander to the left in power

SNP leader John Swinney has urged people to take part in a “Scottish national service” by using the general election to vote Tory MPs out of office, PA Media reports.

Scotland’s first minister said his party could “remove the remaining rump of Tory MPs”.

Latest from campaign trail sees leader of the opposition head to Scotland, after his visit to Wales

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The Conservative party has announced plans for fly-tippers to get points on their driving licences. The party also pledged to pass a law that would allow tenants to be kicked out of social housing after three proven instances of antisocial behaviour.

PA Media reports it said the moves are part of the party’s “plan to stamp out antisocial behaviour across the board to restore pride in place, improve people’s quality of life and boost community cohesion”.

Former Labour leader said the party had shown ‘blatant double-standards, hypocrisy and contempt for local democracy’

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Keir Starmer is in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, launching Labour’s general election campaign in Wales with beleagured first minister Vaughan Gething. Next week Gething faces a confidence motion in the Senedd. We’ll bring you any key lines that emerge. You can watch it here, the event has just started …

The Liberal Democrats have again criticised ITV’s decision to host a debate featuring just Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer and excluding themselves. The Liberal Democrats were the fourth largest party in the House of Commons after the 2019 election.

Well obviously, I’d love it if Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats did have a voice in the TV debates, and we are setting out our stall every single day – our fair deal for the British people, our focus on the NHS and care system, the cost-of-living crisis and sewage in our rivers and seas.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

This week the Thursday quiz is steadfastly ignoring the general election in the UK, though not ignoring elections elsewhere. You face 15 questions on topical news, general knowledge, and some other stuff that caught the eye this week. There are no prizes, but you can let us know how you got on in the comments, where you can pick up bonus points for being funny, but lose points for tediously quibbling with the questions like that one boring bloke does at your local pub quiz every week. Enjoy!

The Thursday quiz, No 162

SNP’s Stephen Flynn hails MP as a ‘phenomenal individual’ and contrasts her treatment with the welcome given to Tories’ Natalie Elphicke

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The Conservatives have been pushing a plan today to expand the number of apprenticeships, pledging “100,000 more apprenticeships a year by the end of the next parliament.”

It is unclear whether this figure includes the “up to 20,000 more apprenticeships” that Sunak previously announced ten weeks ago.

Under the plans, there would be legislation granting greater powers to the Office for Students, the universities regulator, to close degree courses that are underperforming. These would be chosen based on drop-out rates, job progression and future earnings potential.

The Conservatives claim to have delivered 5.8m apprenticeships since 2010. But the number of people starting out on apprenticeships in England is in decline, falling from 500,000 in 2015 to 337,000 last year, according to Commons library statistics.

First of all, you cannot generalise about entire subject areas. In almost all subjects there will be some institutions delivering well, and some not doing well. So for example, you take computer science, you know, you get earnings outcomes from young people studying computer science degrees which will range from £18,000 pounds to £80,000 pounds so it’s not about an individual subjects but about specific courses.

The second thing I genuinely don’t think it will be right or fair to young people who are currently on an undergraduate course to have a politician come on the radio and namecheck that particular course that they are on.

Deaths of 45 people in densely populated camp have caused widespread outrage

Medical workers in Gaza ‘exhausted’ and their message is not getting through, the MSF chief has said.

When asked about the types and extent of injuries arising out of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah that left at least 45 people dead, Dr Christos Christou, the Médecins Sans Frontières International president, says his organisation’s medical facility received more than 128 patients, some of whom, after being stabilised, have nowhere to turn for further surgical treatment.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy signs security pact with Belgium’s De Croo during visit to Brussels

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said it is time for EU member states to lift restrictions on Ukraine striking Russian territory on the grounds that it would escalate the war.

He said it was up to national governments in the EU to decide if their weapons and some already do, adding:

Some allies have not imposed restrictions on the weapons. I believe the time has come to consider those restrictions, not least in light of the development in the war, the evolution into a war which now is actually taking place along the borders and that makes it even harder for them to defend themselves and the right for self defence is part of the right for self defence.

Millie Gibson takes centre stage as she lives out a life that is packed with the supernatural – but without the Doctor. It’s a stone-cold classic … until its final moments

After the suspense of last week’s Boom, the new Doctor Who season cranked up to full-on horror in 73 Yards, with an episode destined to be remembered as one of the all-time great companion performances.

Once the Doctor vanishes, it is left to Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday to unravel the mystery that then stretches through the whole of her life, morphing from creeping dread in rural Wales to a political thriller split between London and Cardiff. Aneurin Barnard cut an impressive figure as the paranoid and controlling populist politician Roger ap Gwilliam, somewhat in the mould of Emma Thompson’s Vivienne Rook in Russell T Davies’ Years and Years.

Former CEO of the Post Office admits she made the ‘wrong calls’ on third day of her testimony at the inquiry

• Day 2: Vennells ruled out review that ‘would be front-page news’
• Day 1: Vennells breaks down as she says she was misled

Wyn Williams, the chair, has confirmed the timetable for day. Edward Henry KC will have questions for an hour, followed by Sam Stein KC for an hour. They both represent groups of victims of the scandal.

Then before lunch there will be questions from legal teams representing the National Federation of Subpostmasters and an individual, Susan Sinclair.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

Welcome again to the weekly Guardian news quiz that veers wildly between intricate topical questions about geopolitics, general knowledge, science, and asking you to put in order some indie albums from the 1990s, depending on how emotional and nostalgic the quizmaster was feeling at the point of writing it. And that is half the charm. There are no prizes, but let us know how you get on in the comments

The Thursday quiz, No 161

Former CEO faces second day of questions on why so many post office operators were prosecuted

• Vennells breaks down as she tells inquiry she was misled
• Key disclosures from first day at Post Office Horizon inquiry

Paula Vennells has begun giving her second day of testimony at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London. She will be questioned again by lead counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC. The inquiry is presided over by chair Wyn Williams.

You can watch the inquiry on this live blog. The video feed produced by the inquiry has a three minute delay on it. Nearly 800 pages of Vennells’ written witness statement have also been published. Her two statements can be found here and here.

Former chief executive tells the inquiry she did not realise Post Office was carrying out prosecutions itself until 2012

Paula Vennells has made an opening statement at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry where she apologised to the victims of the scandal and offered to stand outside the old Post Office of one of the victims with them to explain to people what happened and what they went through. She said she had been deeply affected by victim impact statements heard by the inquiry.

She said:

I would just like to say, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this, how sorry I am for all that subpostmasters and their families and others who suffered as a result of all of the matters that the inquiry has been looking into for so long.

I followed and listened to all of the human impact statements, and I was very affected by them. I remember listening to one subpostmaster whose name I noted, who said that he would like somebody to go and stand outside his old Post Office with him so he could tell them exactly what he’d been through. I would do that.

International criminal court’s chief prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif

In today’s First Edition newsletter, my colleague Archie Bland has spoken to Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media, a news website covering Iran, about what the future holds there after the unexpected death of president Ebrahim Raisi at the weekend:

Ebrahim Raisi was not a beloved figure in Iran – but that doesn’t mean his critics will necessarily be feeling optimistic today. “You will find as many different feelings about his death as there are Iranians,” Mohammad Ali Shabani said. “But within my own networks, there’s maybe a mix of people who don’t perceive him as having been influential, meaning that there won’t be a massive upheaval – but also an underlying nervousness about what’s next.”

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Karim Khan told CNN that he is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the Israeli prime minister

Reuters has put together a list of reactions from around the world, with Iranian ally Russia among those expressing concern and offering to help search for the president. Others also offered help or well wishes, while the US merely said that President Joe Biden was “closely following reports”. Here’s a rundown of reactions from around the world:

TURKEY
“I convey my best wishes to our neighbour, friend and brother Iranian people and government, and I hope to receive good news from Mr Raisi and his delegation as soon as possible,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a post on X. Turkey’s disaster and emergency management authority said in a statement that Iran had requested a night vision search-and-rescue helicopter from Turkey.

Steven Moffat’s return to Doctor Who has alien planets, murderous AI – and Ncuti Gatwa trapped in an incredibly tense race against time

After two episodes, where Doctor Who seemed determined to greet any potential new Disney viewers with everything that could be fun, camp and ridiculous about the show, this was a darker turn from the pen of former showrunner Steven Moffat.

The conceit that the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) could not move for nearly the whole episode, and instead had to rely on Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) to get him out of a fix, dialled up the tension and gave both actors a chance to deepen their characterisations. Ruby is clearly prepared to take risks, and this Doctor is more vulnerable and emotional than some previous incarnations. You could imagine Peter Capaldi trying to sarcasm his way out of being stuck on a landmine, rather than being forced to sing a haunting soldier’s lament to calm the nerves.