William Bell of Christian Aid on a decades-old cycle of violence and the UN commission of inquiry’s report that said Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October

The UN commission of inquiry’s report should shock us all to our very core (Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October, says UN body, 12 June). It describes in graphic detail the contempt with which Israeli and Palestinian military forces treat innocent civilians.

Sexual violence, collective punishment, starvation, humiliation, extermination and more are highlighted in a catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Of course, words of denial and accusations of bias are issued in protest. But the truth is that civilians have routinely been targeted in this decades-old cycle of violence.

A large increase in the Greens’ vote share will make other politicians wake up, writes Cherry Waters. Plus letters from Dave Walker, Daniel Wimberley, John Searby, Tim Rickard and George Carnarvon

George Monbiot urges those lucky enough to live in one of the four constituencies with a real chance of electing a Green MP to vote for them (Who should hold the next prime minister to account? Our best hope lies with the Green party, 12 June). But he doesn’t go far enough. In this election, more than any other, there is a real point in voting for every Green candidate, wherever they are standing, now that it’s a given that the Tories are toast and Labour are going to win.

The more of the electorate who vote Green but are not represented by a Green MP, the stronger the case is for proportional representation. And with two, three or even four Green MPs in the Commons to lead the other MPs who empathise with Compass, which has long been campaigning for PR, we will have the best chance yet of achieving real democracy for future elections.
Cherry Waters
South Milford, North Yorkshire

• Euro 2024 news from the 5pm BST kick-off in Frankfurt
• Match centre | Latest Euro 2024 Daily | Player interactive

Belgium’s best chances to win a major competition were in 2016 and 2018. They started Euro 2020 with four straight wins but then lost taemly to Italy in the quarter-finals. In Qatar they were a bit of a mess, although they should still have qualified ahead of the eventual semi-finalists.

They’re unbeaten since that tournament, a run that includes a win away to Germany and a draw at Wembley. What it all means, I know not.

Russian leader will have talks with Kim Jong-un with shared aim of expanding security and economic cooperation

Vladimir Putin will travel to North Korea this week as he seeks continued military support for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine from one of the world’s most isolated nations.

In his first visit to North Korea since 2000, Putin will meet Kim Jong-un for one-on-one talks in Pyongyang as the two leaders pledge to expand their security and economic cooperation in defiance of western sanctions against both countries.

The 27 heads of state and government meet for the first time since European elections and Macron’s decision to call snap vote in France

Donald Tusk said he is “very satisfied with the current cooperation with the president of the European Commission, as she fully understands the fundamental issues for Poland.”

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, has endorsed Kaja Kallas, who is a contender to become the bloc’s next high representative for foreign affairs.

New Politico survey reveals 21% of independent voters are less likely to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 election because of his felony conviction last month

Joe Biden spent the weekend fundraising with his former boss, Barack Obama, and the Hollywood stars who have increasingly lined up behind the Democratic president’s re-election effort. Here’s more, from the Associated Press:

Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden, helping raise what his re-election campaign said was a record $30m-plus and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation’s history.

It represented a forum he could conveniently castigate when things went wrong. Now the blame can only go in one direction

There is very little drama in Netanyahu’s decision, or rather bland and laconic statement that he is dissolving the “war cabinet” that he himself formed on 11 October 2023. Constitutionally and in terms of affecting policy, the decision is a Seinfeld decision: it’s about nothing. The constitutionally authoritative body – the one with real power – is the security cabinet. The war cabinet was a convenient and circumstantial political invention. But Benny Gantz’s recent withdrawal from the government made the forum redundant in terms of policymaking, and politically explosive, since the extreme rightwing ministers now demanded to join.

The dissolution of the war cabinet looks like an important development. It isn’t. Had Winston Churchill dissolved his war cabinet in January 1941, eight months after he assembled it in May 1940, that would have been significant. This is not the same. Churchill’s war cabinet, as Neville Chamberlain’s before him in 1939, or even David Lloyd George’s war cabinet during the first world war in 1917, then called the war policy committee, had clearly defined constitutional and statutory powers and authority. The war cabinet that Netanyahu formed in the panic, disarray and disorientation that ensued in the days after 7 October patently lacked those constitutional powers.

Alon Pinkas served as Israel’s consul general in New York from 2000 to 2004. He is now a columnist for Haaretz

Win against Serbia showcased familiar strengths and failings as the victors started fast then began to drop back

A sudden gust of wind whips around the Arena AufSchalke, a light drizzle has begun to fall and with 32 minutes on the clock, the match between England and Serbia is about to change course. It doesn’t feel that way in the moment. To be honest, you need to rewind the tape quite a few times to work it out. But in tight tournament games, the shifts of momentum and supremacy can be subtle, fleeting and almost invisible. And this particular shift begins with England’s man of the match, Jude Bellingham.

First, a little recap. Bellingham has deservedly put England ahead with a 13th-minute header, and with a third of the game played everything is going his way. Serbia, who can’t really defend that well, are defending deep, and thus forcing themselves to defend more. Harry Kane isn’t getting the ball at all, but as he will later explain this is essentially by design, stretching the pitch as much as he can so Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and especially Bellingham can work their magic. The England press is hungry and organised, and even when they squander possession they invariably get it straight back.

In LA last week, horror production company Blumhouse announced that it was entering the video game market with its indie horror label Blumhouse Games. Jason Blum, Louise Blain and Zach Wood discuss its approach

A new indie video game publisher made its debut in Los Angeles last week: Blumhouse Games, a division of the horror movie production company co-founded by director Jason Blum in 2000. Unsurprisingly, its specialty will be horror. During the livestreamed Summer Game Fest showcase, Blum and creative lead Louise Blain announced a slate of six experimental horror games, the first of which, Fear the Spotlight, will launch later this year.

Blum described the games label as “going back to our roots, with a focus on indie horror, pushing boundaries and elevating new, original stories”. Like the company’s movies, from Paranormal Activity to M3GAN, its games are all low-budget productions with interesting ideas. The slate includes Project C, a new project from the creators of the brilliant and unusual cine-game Immortality; Grave Seasons, a farming-life game where one of the townspeople is a serial murderer; and Fear the Spotlight, a 90s-styled low-poly horror game about two teenaged girls and a seance gone awry, made by a two-person husband-and-wife team.

NFU’s Hugh Broom says incident in Surrey ‘looks horrendous’ but the cow could have hurt someone

Officers who hit an escaped cow with a car “probably did the right thing at the time” even if it looks “horrendous”, a union leader and farmer has said.

A video showing a police car hitting the calf on Friday night on a residential street in Staines-upon-Thames was met with widespread outrage, including from the RSCPA which criticised the move as “disproportionate”.

MP Barry Gardiner told Christine Lee, who is bringing action against Security Service, of suggestion it was trying to shift attention from scandal

A Labour MP and key ally of Jeremy Corbyn claimed it had been suggested that MI5 issued a rare alert notice about a lawyer who the Security Service believed was a Chinese mole as a distraction from Partygate, a tribunal has heard.

The Security Service issued an interference alert against Christine Lee in 2022, the day after Boris Johnson apologised for the Partygate scandal, warning MPs that she was a suspected Chinese agent who had engaged in “political interference activities” on behalf of a branch of the Chinese Communist party (CCP).

Stocks are at near record levels. That’s not enough for some corporate CEOs, who want more giant tax cuts

The Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s biggest corporations. It likes to think of itself as socially responsible.

Last Wednesday, its chair, Joshua Bolten, told reporters that his group planned to drop “eight figures” while “putting its full weight behind protecting and strengthening tax reform”.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Exclusive: almost half of billionaire Tory donor’s last 100 reposts were in support of rightwing party

A Tory peer and former party donor has shared dozens of social media posts supportive of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

During the course of the election campaign Peter Cruddas, the billionaire Tory donor who was controversially ennobled by Boris Johnson, has reposted a string of material calling on voters to back Farage and his party.

• Left-back also of interest to his former club Fulham
• West Ham need to be convinced he is over fitness issues

West Ham are mulling over whether to push ahead with a move for the former Tottenham left-back Ryan Sessegnon on a free transfer.

Sessegnon, a free agent after being released by Spurs, is looking for a new opportunity after a difficult spell with injuries. Fulham are interested in a reunion with the 24-year-old and there has also been initial contact from the Hammers.

Value of Euronext Paris stocks falls by about $258bn in week after Macron’s announcement of snap elections

Paris has lost its spot as Europe’s largest equity market to London, as investors reacted to political turmoil in France in the week since Emmanuel Macron called snap elections.

Stocks listed on Euronext Paris were collectively worth about $3.13tn after about $258bn was knocked off the market capitalisation of French companies last week, putting it behind the London Stock Exchange’s $3.18tn (£2.51tn), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Separate data from Refinitiv, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, also suggested the market value of UK-listed companies was bigger.

Painful near miss at Pinehurst after letting a two-shot lead late in the final round slip away could take a while to recover from

Amid the grumbling at Rory McIlroy’s sharp exit from the US Open, it is worth remembering that a picture can tell 1000 words. The scale of McIlroy’s devastation was so stark that it looked possible he could throw up all over the scoring area in which he was standing as Bryson DeChambeau holed out for victory at Pinehurst. Anyone who questions the extent to which McIlroy cares about his professional pursuits need only have looked at his face.

Even for those with a loose attachment to his career, the denouement to the 124^th US Open was gut wrenching to watch. This was a loss so sore that McIlroy felt unable to detail his thoughts to the wider world. He should be given a pass there; not only is the Northern Irishman generous with his time to the media, it seems impossible he could have adequately articulated what heartbreak had transpired over the previous hour. McIlroy didn’t hang about, either, for the cheesy shaking of DeChambeau’s hand in front of cameras. This is a sportsman who had the ending of a painful, apparently interminable run within his grasp and cracked. No wonder McIlroy wanted off the property as quickly as possible. Golf’s pals act is contrived nonsense anyway. McIlroy could have offered platitudes to DeChambeau so everybody could say what a wonderful guy he is but this would bely raw emotion.

Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Surrey
Natalya Romaniw is touching as the heroine trapped in a loveless marriage, while Susan Bullock is chilling as her monstrous mother-in-law in David Alden’s staging

Only a generation ago Janáček’s operas were outsiders, regarded as spiky and hard to place. Now they are so much part of the repertoire that they are regularly served up between the champagne and interval picnics of the country house opera circuit. Grange Park Opera’s latest Janáček production, in the theatre in the grounds of West Horsley Place – which fans of the TV series Ghosts will recognise as Button House – reunites some big names for his 1921 opera, supporting a powerhouse role debut from the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw.

The director is David Alden, almost fresh from reviving Janáček’s Jenufa at ENO and here revisiting a work he first staged more than a quarter of a century ago. His familiar fingerprints are all over it. Apart from some chaotic moments as Katya’s world unravels in the final act the action is staged simply and allusively on Hannah Postlethwaite’s sloping slab of a set, with Tim Mitchell’s lighting creating silhouettes that seem almost like characters in their own right. The era is vaguely Janáček’s own, the setting dour and almost plain apart from a door marked Vychod, “exit”, at the back. In the storm, whipped up by chorus members brandishing umbrellas, the ruined building in which everyone shelters is unambiguously an abandoned church, the chorus witness Katya’s self-inflicted downfall as a stony-faced congregation.

In today’s newsletter: The rightwing party launched its manifesto today – but does any of it add up?

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Good afternoon. Reform’s gimmick at the launch earlier of their manifesto – which they are calling a “contract”, because “when I say manifesto you think lie” – was for Nigel Farage and Richard Tice to sign it. But when it came to the big moment, Nigel didn’t have a working pen.

If that had been him, Rishi Sunak might bitterly reflect, it would have been viewed as the kind of symbolic unforced error that would justify further headlines about his campaign being in chaos. But nobody really noticed, because Farage has momentum, and a narrative, on his side.

Brexit | Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has suggested. Areas where Labour could seek closer alignment with EU rules could include the chemicals sector and a revised deal for workers in the City of London.

Energy | The SNP has called for a social tariff to guarantee cheap energy bills for people who are poor, disabled or elderly. The party’s leader John Swinney said the same concept should be applied to broadband and mobile phone bills.

Welfare | Keir Starmer is facing renewed pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit, as research reveals that 250,000 more children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone. Labour’s manifesto promised an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty”, but did not mention the two-child limit.

Riley returns with new emotions and new concepts. Does it have the same impact as the first film? Is it an accurate portrayal of adolescence? And where’s Bing Bong?

• This article contains spoilers for Inside Out and Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2 has far exceeded expectations at the box office over the weekend, shattering records and massively boosting morale across the film industry. So, we know a lot of people went to see it, and that a lot of them in the US liked it (it got an A grade from CinemaScore, which tracks exiting punters’ reactions).

The elephant in the room is that the original Inside Out was a masterpiece. A best-part-of-a-decade-in-the-making masterpiece: immaculately structured, insightful, tight, funny and very moving. Matching that is an almost impossible task – right? We want your thoughts on how the new movie measures up to the old, and stands on its own terms.

List of ‘horror stories’ highlights need to respect women’s personal space and avoid patronising questions

Male mountaineers should be more mindful of women’s concerns about their personal safety in remote areas and avoid patronising them by questioning their map-reading abilities, a climbing expert has said.

The advice comes in response to female hillwalkers and mountaineers saying sceptical attitudes towards their skills and unwanted attention are discouraging women from taking up the sport.

The appetite for drama based on real events seems insatiable, but a preliminary ruling that a British film defamed the original of one of its characters – along with legal action against Baby Reindeer – may give producers pause for thought

It’s enough to chill the blood of screenwriters, directors and producers everywhere – or at least provoke a wince of recognition, whether they are in UK legal jurisdiction or not. In a preliminary ruling, a British judge has ruled that the The Lost King, the film about the discovery in 2012 of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park, has a case to answer that it is defamatory of Richard Taylor, a former university official.

The Lost King covers the efforts spearheaded by Philippa Langley (played by Sally Hawkins) to uncover Richard III’s skeleton, and Lee Ingleby plays Taylor, the then deputy registrar of Leicester university. Taylor claims the film shows him “behaving abominably” and shows him taking credit for the discovery for himself and the university.

Inquest opens into death of Connor MacKenzie Clark, 18, who is believed to have taken his own life

A Royal Marines major who was a member of the bearer party for the Duke of Edinburgh’s coffin has denied telling a teenage trainee who is believed to have taken his own life that he was the “worst recruit” and a “failure”.

Maj Mark Thrift also said he could not understand why a search for Connor MacKenzie Clark, whose body was found on a railway track in Devon a few metres from the training camp, was not launched when he was reported missing.

The famously traditional fixture will try to keep calm and carry on amid the sport’s turmoil

At a time of significant uncertainty for the centuries-old sport of horse racing, what better event could there be to steady the nerves than the royal meeting at Ascot? Crowd numbers are in decline at a long list of showpiece occasions, senior executives are moving on and the much-feared affordability checks on punters appear imminent. There is also, almost certainly, a new government on the way. Royal Ascot, though, remains a living, breathing embodiment of Keep Calm & Carry On.

This is a meeting with the cheery self-confidence to stage three of its eight Group One events on Tuesday’s opening card, which always attracts the second-lowest attendance of the week. It maintains a dress code based on Victorian levels of class-consciousness, and remains aloof from the grubby business of sponsorship for its races, at least in part because, well, that is how they have always done it.

As Douglas Is Cancelled prepares to air, Moffat talks about career implosions, Bonneville relives past nude scenes – and Kingston recalls the ‘wandering hands’ warnings she used to be given

When Douglas, a nationally trusted news host, suffers a social media pile-on about a private comment revealed online, he consults his agent, who warns him – with a vagueness that may have pleased ITV’s lawyers – that he risks the fate of fellow broadcasters “whatsisname and the other one”. Many viewers will substitute the names Phillip Schofield and Huw Edwards, whose careers were cancelled after controversies about their conduct.

“They may well do,” admits Steven Moffat, writer of ITV’s four-part Douglas Is Cancelled. “But I wrote the first version of this – as a stage play that didn’t get put on – five years ago, long before the cases you mention. It doesn’t matter which period you put this story in: there will be somebody who fell from grace in TV.”

The Guardian is reporting from the constituency of Belfast North to find out what issues people there care about most – and we want your help

The Guardian will be reporting from the new constituency of Belfast North ahead of the general election. This will be part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters most to the people who live there.

If you live in the constituency of Belfast North, can you tell us what will decide your vote? We’d like to understand the big issues facing you and your family and which policies matter to you. How happy are you with the state of housing, work, public transport, local facilities for young people, policing and health services? What local issues should we be looking at?

Voters will see through the thin prospectus Farage offered today. And pandering to his ideas won’t end well for the Conservatives

Smash him. Go for the jugular. Take the gloves off and hit him with the big one. We have nothing to lose. A sure sign of political panic is when the kids in the backroom take control of tactics and use the language of the big fight.

But who is it that Rishi Sunak is reportedly being advised to smash? The gossip from anonymous “advisers” is that he should get nasty with Keir Starmer. They have been impressed by how unsettled Starmer was by an interviewer reminding him of his support for his predecessor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in 2019. And Sunak is also now threatened by the ghostly voice of Brexit, Nigel Farage, reincarnated as the leader of Reform.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Election results special. Join Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Hugh Muir, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams on 5 July

BBC records former special operations chief saying abandoning people at sea was an ‘international crime’

A former Greek coastguard officer has described as “clearly illegal” the actions of colleagues who abandoned nine migrants at sea in one of 15 alleged pushbacks from Greek islands or territorial waters that reportedly killed dozens of people.

In an interview with the BBC, Dimitris Baltakos, the Greek coastguard’s former head of special operations, refused to speculate about footage the broadcaster showed him, after earlier denying the coastguard would ever be told to do anything illegal.

The investigation forms the basis for a BBC2 documentary, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?

Thirty years ago, when they could briefly claim to be one of the world’s best teams, Romania won millions of admirers with their eye for the spectacular. It returned to devastating effect in their return to major tournament football, a performance of eye-bulging intensity giving a fancied but ultimately tepid Ukraine side no answer.

Serhiy Rebrov’s players did not know what had hit them. They had been dominant to little effect until just before the half hour when Nicolae Stanciu, the Romania captain, transformed the picture with a long-range strike that may not be bettered all month. Razvan Marin, again from distance, and Denis Dragus settled the issue in rip-roaring start to the second period and Ukraine will surely need four points from somewhere if their remarkable story of resilience is to continue in Germany.

The older generation now accounts for half the combined net worth of the US – and in the UK they hold 78% of the UK’s private housing wealth

Name: Geriatric millionaires

Age: 61.

Exclusive: Some of the drivers say they were not paid in full and in some cases billed thousands for vehicle damage

A group of drivers hired in Spain and brought to the UK to deliver Amazon packages to British households in the run-up to Christmas are taking legal action against the company and one of its subcontractors.

The drivers claim the subcontractor promised them earnings of more than £100 a day, free housing, van rental, insurance and free return flights via an online meeting in Spanish.

From weekly dinners to clothing swaps, communal housing to carpooling, creating your own community is key to making child-rearing on your own cost-effective and fun

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When I became a single parent of a preschool-aged child, I quickly discovered the best way to look after my son and myself was to build community with other single parents. I had just returned to Brisbane after a decade abroad and suddenly found myself without a job, a car or indeed a partner, and few family and friends living nearby.

Eight years on, I’m now part of an informal economy that shares childcare, school supplies, clothing, meals, days out and even holidays. It may take a village, but the village has saved me money, time and, on more than one occasion, my sanity.

Six holidaymakers reported dead or missing in nine days as ‘abnormally hot’ weather hits Mediterranean

Search operations to find three missing tourists on two Greek islands have intensified after police announced that two holidaymakers had been found dead on other islands over the weekend.

Rescue teams supported by sniffer dogs, helicopters and drones have been scouring the Cycladic islands of Sikinos and Amorgos for two French women and an American man who went missing last week.

From economy to transport, health to housing, and immigration – how do the main pledges in party’s ‘contract’ with electorate stack up?

• UK election live – latest updates

Reform UK insists its plans are “not just another party manifesto”, because it does not expect to win the election. But there are a lot of policy ideas in its 28-page “contract” with the electorate. Here are the main proposals from Nigel Farage’s party.

After Guardian writers shared their most affecting big screen deaths, you responded with yours, from Leon to Aftersun

Major spoilers ahead

Technically he doesn’t die, but for all intents and purposes, in the context of the film, he does. Him pleading and trying to reason not to be turned off and expressing his fear is quite affecting. Nicens_boi

Anti-Muslim sentiment is so mainstreamed now that politicians like Suella Braverman barely bother disguising it

• Humza Yousaf is a former first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National party

While many in the world rightly bemoan the rise of populism, few are willing to confront the fact that it is the hatred of Muslims that is driving populism in Europe and the west.

In 2024, almost half the world’s population will take part in elections. Many countries have already gone to the polls, and in a number of countries, particularly across Europe, the biggest gains have been made by those who make a living out of vilifying Muslims.

The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey look ahead to Reform UK’s manifesto launch and why Nigel Farage might be spooking the Conservatives

Rescuers near Italy report 10 bodies found on wooden boat and 50 missing in a separate incident off Calabria

At least 10 people have died and dozens are missing after two separate shipwrecks close to the Italian coast, rescuers said.

Ten bodies were found on Monday in the lower deck of a wooden boat in the central Mediterranean by rescuers from Nadir, a ship operated by the German charity ResQship. The charity said it saved 51 people who were onboard the sinking vessel, which is believed to have departed from Tunisia.

• Fans waited three hours in Gelsenkirchen after victory
• Uefa urged to guarantee sufficient transport for matches

The official England supporters’ group has called for an “urgent and thorough review” of the arrangements that led to thousands of fans being stranded before and after the fixture against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday night.

The Free Lions group described fans being crammed on to trams, forced to walk for miles and stranded in the city some three hours after the final whistle. It said it was “dismayed” and called on Uefa to guarantee sufficient transport arrangements to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

Yamanashi prefecture brings in modest hiking fee to stop ‘bullet climbing’ and address safety concerns

A crowd-control gate has been installed halfway up Mount Fuji before the start of this year’s climbing season on 1 July, but the governor of Yamanashi, one of the two prefectures that are home to the mountain, said additional measures were needed to control overcrowding on its lower slopes.

The gate was completed on Monday as part of a set of measures being introduced this year to address growing safety, environmental and overcrowding problems on Japan’s highest and best-known mountain.

The US has a squad full of players from Europe’s top leagues. But Gregg Berhalter’s side have continually struggled against top competition

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The theory always was that what the USMNT needed was for more of their players to be playing with the best in Europe. Good, tough, regular competition, proper professional training, exposure to best practice at the highest level the game has ever known. That was what would transform the raw material the US produces into a genuinely top-level side that might be able to compete regularly with the world’s elite. Practice is never that straightforward.

The friendly against Colombia earlier this month was the first time the US had been able to field a starting XI all of whom play in the top flight of the Big Five European leagues (there’s a quibble over whether France can really be included in that grouping or whether Portugal or the Netherlands is more worthy, but let’s go with it for now as a useful shorthand to denote high European level). Was this then to be the breakout, the moment at which the US finally became a major world power in the men’s game?

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Shorter playtimes and shrinking outside space in England have serious implications for children’s wellbeing and mental health

• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils
• Indoors at breaktime: the school in a London office block
• Private schools in England should be made to share their green space, say campaigners

Children are facing a “brutal” loss of space and time for play in school, teachers, unions and academics have warned.

A combination of factors is eating into the time children spend outside, and will have serious implications for their wellbeing and mental health.

A Guardian analysis of the space available to state school children in England has revealed that thousands are attending schools with very little outside space, with government data showing that more than 300 schools have under 1,000 sq metres and at least 20 have no outside space. In nearly 1,000 schools, there is under 10 sq metres for each pupil.

New and unpublished research from the UCL Institute of Education seen by the Guardian showed a continued downward trend in the amount of time children have for playtime in the wake of the Covid lockdowns, with the youngest losing the most time.

The demands of the curriculum have increased, and continue to diminish time outside, while staffing shortages are reducing capacity to oversee playtime.

Across England and Wales schools face difficult financial decisions, which are having an impact on the funding to care for grounds. Headteachers in the state sector have said they are in desperate need of funding to improve basic facilities for children.

School buildings are crumbling, as many were built with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) that was not replaced within its usable lifetime, meaning in some cases playgrounds are being used to host temporary classrooms. This is squeezing out the little space some schools have for children to spend time outside.

Group that runs Oasis Academy South Bank warns councils prioritise private housing over space for children to breathe

• Children facing a ‘brutal’ loss of time and space for play at state schools
• Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils

Oasis Academy South Bank in Waterloo sits in a densely built-up corner of south London – so densely that the only space found for the school was in a recommissioned office block. There is no playground, no sports pitch, nowhere to play football at break time.

Steve Chalke is the founder of Oasis Charitable Trust, the organisation that runs the school, one of 54 in their charge across England. He admits it is a challenging environment.

When your kids are small, you can just present them with a card and some felt tips. But when they’re adolescents, everything gets much trickier

It was Father’s Day morning, and my friend and I were comparing notes on whose offspring were the least prepared: if you thought children were useless, may I introduce you to adolescents? “I couldn’t put a card and some felt-tips in front of them,” she said, “they’re teenagers; they’re not nine.” “So have they made cards?” “Nope.” I am expressly forbidden from writing about my daughter, so let’s just square her off with the statement that she is perfect in every way, and her Father’s Day efforts were second to none.

The rest of them, sheesh. My daughter’s best friend said the problem with dads is that they don’t want anything, then amended that to: they either want some speakers for £5,000 or they want a glass of water, there’s nothing in between. Then it hit her that she could get her dad some chocolates. “Does he like chocolate?” I asked, sceptically, because, in my experience, a lot of parents prefer to get their sugar from alcohol. “Everyone likes chocolate,” she said, with unbridled confidence. My son ignored all the helpful links I’d sent him – a plectrum holder in the shape of a tiny guitar; a hat – and said the true gift of Father’s Day was that his dad had grown a whole person to watch the football with. I said, “Oi, I half grew you and football was nowhere in my intentions” and he said: “And yet, here I am, going to watch the football.”

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

‘The German production has had a standing ovation every night for 36 years. Graf went before big tennis competitions to gee herself up. And the German football team would go before an international’

Andrew Lloyd Webber said to me: “I have this story.” It was going to be an animated film based on Thomas the Tank Engine, but animation back in the early 1980s was really expensive, so that never happened. Then we started working on something called Rocky Mountain Railroad. That was going to be a train race across America to see who would have the honour of taking Prince Charles and Diana on a royal tour. There’s history for you. Andrew had a train set in his attic. I’d had one as a boy. It didn’t seem to be a daft idea. The previous show we’d done was people pretending to be cats, so people pretending to be trains wasn’t such a leap.

Come for the live action, stay for the double-breasted get-up of Poland’s Michal Probierz as football and fashion collide

In the words of Gareth Southgate: “Whenever you put something on, you’re making some sort of a statement,” and it seems the managers currently battling it out at the Euros feel similarly. Because while the high fashion – the catwalk appearances and designer togs – might be reserved for the young-gun players, there has already been a lot to note on the sidelines.

“Football managers are tactical masterminds,” says Daniel-Yaw Miller, sports correspondent at industry publication the Business of Fashion. “There’s not a single element of their preparation that is left to chance — for many of them, that includes their sartorial choices on the touchline. Over the years we’ve seen managers dress in certain ways to communicate their authority and the style of their player management.”

Though veteran MP is standing again for Labour, drawn-out dispute has left many black voters despondent

• UK election live – latest updates

On a bright sunny June afternoon, sunlight bounces off Thomas J Price’s Warm Shores, a pair of 9ft bronze statues of a man and woman that stand proudly outside Hackney town hall as a celebration of the Windrush generation.

The statues had a great view when Diane Abbott, whose Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency sits just to the north, made a speech confirming she was determined to stand again as an MP after a major row with Labour.

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JJ Rice, who had been chosen to represent Tonga at the Paris Olympics, has died in a diving accident. He was 18.

Rice’s father, Darren, confirmed his son’s death on Monday to the Matangi Tonga newspaper.

Article in US paper claims Robert Winnett, due to join from Telegraph, used material from self-described ‘thief’

The Washington Post has published an investigation that accuses its own future editor of using the work of a self-described blagger who stole private records to order.

Under the headline “Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting”, the newspaper claimed that Robert Winnett used material from a self-confessed blagger, John Ford, while working as a journalist on the Sunday Times during the 2000s.