Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax changes encourage more people to invest in previously unloved product
The government’s “inheritance tax raid” on pensions has helped drive sales of retirement annuities to new highs.
Industry data this week revealed they enjoyed a “record-breaking” 2025, with sales growing by 4% to £7.4bn and the average amount invested in an annuity surpassing £80,000 for the first time.
In this week’s newsletter: Everyone has to start somewhere … and in front of someone. Thankfully, these soon-to-be-huge artists left the mime act and dodgy covers (mostly) in the past
From the Beatles slogging through mammoth sets for jeering sailors in Hamburg basement bars, to Ed Sheeran playing just about every open mic night in the south of England, even the biggest acts had to start small. So when we asked Guide readers to share their memories of seeing now-massive bands and artists before they were famous, it was inevitable we’d get some great tales. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to devote the main chunk of this week’s Guide to your pre-fame gig recollections. We’ve also asked Guardian music writers – seasoned veterans of seeking out the next big thing – to share a few of their memories. Read on for tales of Kurt Cobain in Yorkshire, Playboi Carti’s set in an east London snooker club and an ill-advised David Bowie mime performance …
My teenage self was shy and miserable, before a coming-of-age film unleashed an adolescence of drink, sex and drugs. It was a years-long party that eventually came crashing down
At 13, what felt like almost overnight, I turned from a happy, musical-theatre-loving child into a sad, lonely teenager. Things I had cared about only yesterday were suddenly irrelevant, as I realised that nothing and no one mattered, least of all me. It’s an angst that adults often find difficult to remember or understand; as the famous line from The Virgin Suicides goes: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”
Going to an all-girls Catholic school, I didn’t even really know that sex, drugs and alcohol existed, or that they had currency, until I watched Thirteen for the first time at 14, after seeing a still on Pinterest. The reckless rebellion the two best friends portrayed was seductive to me, and within weeks of watching the film, I’d met some girls from the co-ed school opposite who were having sex, going to parties and taking drugs. Soon, I was doing it all too.
Epstein files release shows David Stern advised against mentioning ‘being denied previously or criminal charges’
An aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor advised Jeffrey Epstein to illegally hide his child sexual abuse conviction to obtain a visa to China, according to the latest Epstein files release.
Auditorium to remove bacon and sausages from cafe during stage run after request from campaign group
Campaigners are calling on theatre bosses to stop serving bacon, sausages and ham in their cafes – at least while Peppa Pig and her family are performing in the same building.
It’s an ideal time of year for snuggling up on a countryside break. We pick accommodation from shepherds’ huts in Somerset to a chateau in Wales
Six vintage-style “luxury huts” spaced out around a lake make up The Shepherds Hut Retreat in south Somerset. They have modern kitchens and bathrooms, private areas with hot tubs, and fancy features such as telescopes, gin bars, pizza ovens, fire pits and hammocks. There is also a woodland sauna on site. The newest hut, 1898, is the grandest, and is inspired by the Pig hotels. It is a mile’s walk to the Lord Poulett Arms, a thatched 17th-century pub in the village of Hinton St George, and half an hour’s drive to the beaches of the Jurassic Coast in east Devon and Dorset. From £169, coolstays.com
A family struggled to rebuild their lives after an abusive marriage ended in tragedy and financial ruin
Family life ended for Francesca Onody on a late summer evening in 2022 when her abusive husband doused their cottage with petrol as police arrived to arrest him. She and her children escaped seconds before the building exploded. Her husband Malcolm Baker died in the blaze.
That night, Onody lost her husband, her home, her pets and her possessions.
From Boy, Baby, Reason and Diary to stubbin and rumpy, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 The world’s largest ocean current circles which continent? 2 Who was both the 8th US president and the 8th vice-president? 3 Where did Britain’s first nudist beach open in 1980? 4 What term did Liz Hurley coin for non-celebrities? 5 Stubbin and rumpy are local names for what felines? 6 Who was introduced on The Porter Wagoner Show in September 1967? 7 Which country’s postal service stopped delivering letters in December 2025? 8 What was the only spin-off series from Friends? What links:
9 Royal Ascot; Open golf; Laver Cup; Olympic heptathlon; Cricket World Cup final (in descending order)? 10 Fleet; Holloway; Marshalsea; Millbank; Newgate? 11 Hirundine bird; Idris Elba DCI; male monarch; Mama Used to Say singer? 12 Boy; Baby; Reason; Diary? 13 1981 and 2005; 1973 and 1992; 1986; 1999? 14 Gulf of Mexico; Denali; US Department of Defense? 15 Septimius Severus; Constantius Chlorus; Dick Turpin; Joseph Rowntree?
Moth, Toastie and Conkers battle it with their microphones. Plus, the story of Sarah Ferguson’s former dresser who was found guilty of murder. Here’s what to watch this evening
A thatcher, gardener and others on keeping their business afloat in the bad weather – and their fears for the future
With76 flood warnings still in force across the UK and further downpours forecast this week and next, parts of the country have endured rain almost without pause since the start of the year.
The prolonged wet weather is disrupting livelihoods as well as daily life, particularly in rural areas, where flooded roads, waterlogged ground and repeated storms are making it harder to keep businesses afloat, protect crops and maintain steady work.
Bizarre idioms for downpours are just one facet of how the UK uses dark humour and ritual to brave the wet
May it fall as a blessing, not as a curse. So goes the ancient prayer inviting us to embrace days of rain.
It is a prayer that would not be welcomed by anyone on the floodplains the UK persists in filling with houses. It would be met with outright hostility by any farmers who are now unable to do any of the things they need to do in February because their land has had literally 40 days and nights of rain.
With so many platforms rife with racism, misogyny and far-right rhetoric, there must be a point where decent people walk away
In a week during which Keir Starmer has been under pressure to resign, cabinet ministers took to X to show their support. “We’ve all been made to tweet,” one Labour figure told a political journalist. Theironyis hard to escape: as the prime minister is embroiled in the scandal of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and now his former aide’s links to a sex offender, MPs are defending him on a platform that has in thepast monthallowed users to create sexualised images of women and girls.
This says something about the unprecedented way in which X has been tied to modern politics since it was still known as Twitter, as well as how widespread the culture of indifference is to the violation of female bodies, both online and off. But it also points to a growing dilemma facing not just politicians, but all of us: is it possible to post ethically on social media any more? And when is it time to log off?
For centuries in Ireland lifting huge boulders was a way to test strength and bond communities, says Instagram sensation Indiana Stones
David Keohan surveyed the County Waterford beach and spotted a familiar mound half-buried in sand: an oval-shaped limestone boulder. It weighed about 115kg.
He wedged it loose with a crowbar, wiped it dry with a cloth, dusted his hands with chalk and paused to gaze at the Irish Sea, as if summoning strength from the waves pounding ashore.
A thrifty and flavourful mashed potato dish beloved of most Indians – careful with that pav bhaji masala though!
Pav bhaji, or Indian spiced mash, is a home cook’s friend. It’s not fussy, and it will take most leftover vegetables and transform them into something delicious. Add a squeeze of lemon, chopped onion and fresh herbs, and mop up with a butter-fried roll, just as the people of Mumbai do. The odd potato? No problem. A bit of cauliflower? Sure. Some peas from the freezer? Ideal! What you do need, however, is a secret weapon in the form of pav bhaji masala, a little box of spice perfectly blended to add the appropriate magic (and available in most places where you’d find a hungry Indian).
She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now she’s as frank as ever
There is a long buildup before I get to see Tracey Emin – her two cats, Teacup and Pancake, preceding her like a pair of slinky sentries as she walks into the white-painted basement kitchen of her huge Georgian house in Margate. The lengthy overture is because – though I’ve been invited for noon – Emin is a magnificently late riser. Her average working day, her studio manager Harry tells me, runs from about 6pm to 3am. And so, while the artist is gradually sorting herself out, Harry takes me on a tour through her home town in the January drizzle, the sea a sulky grey blur beyond the sands.
At last, Harry is ringing the doorbell, and Emin’s lovely housekeeper, Sam, is sitting me down in the kitchen, then finally here she is, dressed in loose dark trousers and top, with those faithful cats. Emin is recognisably the same as she’s ever been – the artist who scandalised and entranced the nation in the 1990s with her tent embroidered with the names of everyone she’d ever slept with; with her unmade bed and its rumpled sheets and detritus. She still has that sardonic lip, those arched brows, those flashing eyes. But these days she is surprisingly calm, slow moving, her greying hair swept back into a loose bun. This is the Emin who has worked hard, survived a great deal and, somewhat unpredictably, ended up a national treasure.
Communal central heating means Moscow can plunge entire neighbourhoods into cold with a single strike
Many Ukrainians are without heating in sub-zero temperatures as a result of relentless Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, while the country suffers through its coldest winter of the war so far.
Ukraine is especially vulnerable to such attacks, as Moscow can exploit a widespread Soviet-era heat system in which multiple apartment blocks rely on communal central heating.
Exclusive: High levels of banned ‘forever chemical’ have been detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites
A string of toxic pollution hotspots has been uncovered across Cumbria and Lancashire, with high levels of the banned cancer-causing “forever chemical” Pfos detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites.
The contamination, spread across a large area, was uncovered by Watershed Investigations and the Guardian after a freedom of information request revealed high concentrations of Pfos in Environment Agency samples taken in January 2025.
Emerald Fennell’s film brings the raunch to Brontë’s romance, while Nintendo’s beloved plumber stars in a colourful, family-friendly sports game
Wuthering Heights Out now
Out on the wily, windy moors, writer-director Emerald Fennell has constructed a new interpretation of the Emily Brontë classic. Margot Robbie is Cathy while Jacob Elordi takes on Heathcliff, and as you might expect from the film-maker behind Saltburn, the passionate pair are set to leave no height unwuthered.
A stylish high-stakes armed robbery thriller with Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo, and a gentle supernatural comedy from Mackenzie Crook. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews
Lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving an impasse over much-criticized agency’s funding
The Department of Homeland Security has begun a partial shutdown, after funding for the much-criticized agency expired, with a range of services, including domestic flights and the US Coastguard, now vulnerable to disruption.
The shutdown was all but confirmed on Thursday, after the Senate failed to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the DHS appropriations bill and lawmakers left Washington for a long weekend without resolving the impasse.
The Canadian prime minister told residents of Tumbler Ridge that the country is ‘with you’
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has told residents of Tumbler Ridge that the country is “with you, and we will always be with you”, during a candlelight vigil for the eight victims of a mass shooting that has shattered the small mining town.
The prime minister, holding hands with opposition leader Pierre Poilievre while flanked by First Nations chiefs and local officials, paid tribute to the families enduring the loss of loved ones, after the shooting at a local school that has become one of the most deadly attacks in Canadian history.
Ukraine-Russia war high on the agenda at Munich Security Council; France’s Macron says world must not accept Ukraine defeated. What we know on day 1,452
Democratic representative also condemns US capture of Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and US support for Israel’s war on Gaza – key US politics stories from Friday, 13 February at a glance
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Donald Trump of tearing apart the transatlantic alliance with Europe and of seeking to introduce an “age of authoritarianism”, as she condemned his administration’s foreign policy in front of its allies’ top policymakers at the Munich security conference.
Speaking at a panel on populism on Friday, the New York representative outlined what she called an “alternative vision” for a leftwing US foreign policy, challenging the Trump administration’s shift to the right in front an audience of US allies who have grown increasingly wary of the US’s increasingly nationalist – and militaristic – global posture.
The Kingston Frontenacs lost what might go down as one of the more lop-sided 4-2 games in Ontario Hockey League history when they fell by that score to the Kitchener Rangers at Slush Puppie Place Friday night. Read More
The celebrity chef urged Brooklyn to remember "one day you're not going to have your Mum and Dad", in the wake of a fall out with parents Sir David and Lady Victoria Beckham.
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