Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Andy Burnham, Labour, Labour party leadership, Makerfield byelection, Greater Manchester, Politics, UK news
Title – As Starmer eyes the exit, here’s a vital lesson for Andy Burnham: first impressions are everything | Polly Toynbee | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pollytoynbee
Link – As Starmer eyes the exit, here’s a vital lesson for Andy Burnham: first impressions are everything | Polly Toynbee | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T14:03:48.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/21/andy-burnham-labour-leadership-keir-starmer

P ause here before we rush headlong into the turbulent future. Stop and inhale last week’s rare political triumph, revel in the sunshine of cheery optimism. It was a precious but unfamiliar sensation when life on the progressive side of politics in Britain is so often a litany of hopes dashed and disappointments.

Andy Burnham’s comprehensive victory in the Makerfield byelection, surpassing expectations, was a precious moment. He demolished £5m-Nigel Farage’s party of loathsome Reformers, whose every election candidate seems more repugnant than the last. Hostile hard-right politics in Britain needs defeating time and time again, every time nativists and hate-stirrers – from Enoch Powell to the BNP – erupt in our politics.

No one but Andy Burnham could have stamped out Reform in a part of Greater Manchester where it had just won every council seat only last month. And how heartening it was that not just Liberal Democrat and Green voters but Makerfield Tories too lent him their votes because they understood that keeping out Reform mattered most: forget flag waving, that’s what patriotism looks like. I will relish Makerfield alongside other rare dates; I delivered leaflets before I could vote in the 1964 election which put and end to what Harold Wilson called “13 years of Tory misrule”. Remember where you were the night of Labour’s great 1997 win after 18 wilderness years? Obama night was best of all.

As Keir Starmer drafts his resignation speech – expected to be delivered on Monday – let’s also recall how he vanquished 14 years of Conservative rule, a triumph after the Jeremy Corbyn wipeout of 2019. But, in truth, Labour’s 2024 general election victory was a freak landslide, won on a paltry 33.7% of the vote. It never felt like a surge of public enthusiasm. The Starmer government struggled from its early days to inspire affection. Why? His speech in the Downing Street garden spoke about a “painful” budget to come as Rachel Reeves announced there was a £22bn black hole in the Treasury. It set a glum tone. Honesty doesn’t always pay.

The first 100 days saw much good done: rail nationalised, bills introduced to improve renters’ and workers’ rights, bus services freed up to local control, free school breakfast clubs rolled out, good public-sector pay deals, and restrictions on onshore windfarms ended. But so much of what his government accomplished was visible only to political obsessives who were aware of announcements on Great British Energy , the national wealth fund , liberalised planning laws for housing and the new border security command .

But what did catch the public eye, just a month into power, was that unexpected cut in pensioners’ winter fuel allowance: cue stock images in the minds of voters of cold old folk wrapped in blankets. If only they had abolished the two-child benefit cap the same day, an old-to-young swap would have resonated well. The other eye-catcher was making farmers pay inheritance tax on a level a bit closer to everyone else’s: cue picturesque tractor protests in Whitehall.

Starmer always lacked a sense of political theatre, but reports of free suits, glasses and gig tickets offered all too vivid imagery, deeply damaging a new, clean regime. It may have been a drop in the ocean compared with the big money political scandals common on the right, but it stuck. Time and again on doorsteps at Makerfield and in recent byelections when I heard people say they “hated” him, those were the only reasons they could think of. No good telling them someone like me getting a winter fuel allowance was absurd or that farmers’ land is pretty valuable: their firmly fixed image was Starmer punishing Old Mother Hubbard and Old MacDonald.

In other words, the vital lesson for Andy Burnham is this: good first impressions are everything. He could look for inspiration to the remarkable Blair/Brown first 100 days in 1997: a windfall levy of £5bn on underpriced privatised utilities, VAT cuts, stamp duty raised on expensive properties, the first ever minimum wage set in motion, child benefit raised – and yes, that winter fuel allowance created.

Every early gesture will brand his future. But his portfolio of promises includes plenty of beacons to illuminate the Burnham way, immediately and memorably. He should start with first steps on easing the cost of living with his reported plan to freeze rents for a year for the roughly 20% of the country who are private-sector tenants .

His other reported ideas should be up and running as soon as possible. That includes capping bus fares at £2 , cutting energy bills by shifting green levies on to general taxation, and cutting business rates for pubs and small shops. Equalising tax rates for income tax and capital gains , as Wes Streeting advocates, would more than cover these, along with blocking that private equity tax loophole – something Starmer promised but didn’t fully deliver. Repossess the failing water companies, Thames Water first, and declare his long-term intent to take back control of the National Grid.

Radicalism can also be cost-free. Burnham (perhaps rashly) promises a breath of fresh air in parliament by relaxing the government whip, freeing his MPs to speak their mind more often. One benefit would be suffering fewer excruciating ministers sent out miserably to read official “lines” to take. Next, it’s time to clean up politics: take dirty money out of Westminster with a strict cap on all political donations.

He is expected to send up flares signalling the start of his promised constitutional reform. Begin the complex devolution route to “Manchesterise” local mayors, with powers to tax and spend, and oversight of schools and health. Longtime backer of fairer elections, Burnham should appoint his promised national commission on proportional representation now: that secures tactical voting support from all progressive parties eager to see it happen.

It’s a lavish tasting menu, yet it’s only for starters. No one can complain he doesn’t have substantial policies. Add in a warmer EU embrace on this Brexit anniversary and chillier caution in coping with the White House. All of this would tell a good story about what Labour is, who it’s for, what it can do. That sense of purpose and direction is all that can keep him motoring ahead when confronted by a monstrous intray of wants and needs, with too little money. Hope is the word and he’s good at it.

But choosing his chancellor will be his most perilously emblematic first act. The hostile press – alongside Unite’s Sharon Graham, never one to miss the chance of throwing spanners in Labour’s works – are trying to poison Ed Miliband’s chances, though he is the more serious economist and the most experienced at dealing with rigid Treasury obstructionism. The exchequer could end up being Wes Streeting’s consolation for not standing, but that could create a narrative of Blair-Brown-esque friction. Keeping Rachel Reeves would steady the markets, says her team.

As for the process of how the next PM is selected – who needs a long, politically damaging leadership contest when the result was written in Makerfield? Meanwhile, let Starmer go with good grace. His political tragedy is that he leaves a strong legacy of much good done, as Labour always does, from universal nursery places to falling NHS waiting lists. As for the future, as the only popular leading politician, Burnham may buck the current terrible trend: each of our last four prime ministers has been the most unpopular ever in their time. Keep chanting the mantra – hope and change, hope and change, hope and change.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Joyce Carol Oates, Books, Culture, Fiction, Women
Title – Richer than Musk: Joyce Carol Oates on her 88 years of watching, writing, feeling and loving | Joyce Carol Oates | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/zoewilliams
Link – Richer than Musk: Joyce Carol Oates on her 88 years of watching, writing, feeling and loving | Joyce Carol Oates | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T04:00:49.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/22/joyce-carol-oates-richer-than-elon-musk-interview

‘M any people, including myself, spend a lot of time thinking about the past. And if you’re living in the same house you were living in with a spouse, the spouse is all around. Nonetheless, it’s not healthy to live in the past; I think we all know that.” Joyce Carol Oates is speaking to me from a book-lined room – one that makes you finally understand what “den” means – at her home in Princeton, New Jersey. She teaches at Princeton University as well as teaching advanced creative writing at Rutgers, also in New Jersey.

The author turned 88 this month, but she looks little changed from the 1960s, when she came to prominence: weightless like a sprite, focused and serious like a librarian. She has been a prolific writer, with more than 60 novels and many volumes of short stories to her name, earning her five Pulitzer prize nominations and a National Book award, among others, since the start of her career. Blonde, a haunting, fictionalised account of the life of Marilyn Monroe, Them, part of the Wonderland quartet, and Zombie, loosely based on the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, are often name-checked as career highs, but her consistency is striking. When she wanted to write mysteries, she did so under the pseudonyms Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly. Her works of nonfiction, mainly criticism and memoir, would constitute a career on their own.

She wastes no time between what she thinks and what she says, yet it takes me about a week to understand the conversation – specifically, what was so unusual about it. Her statements are spare and clear, some are obvious, but they work almost as camouflage, to slip in deeply idiosyncratic ways of thinking and being. She will not be drawn into territory that doesn’t interest her, but sometimes she arrives via her solitary route at a subject everyone else is talking about and drops in an observation so clear, unembellished yet unhurried, that the rest of the chatter falls away.

That is what happened last November when she got into what Forbes magazine described as a “fierce online feud” with Elon Musk, “roasting him on his own platform [X]”, according to one literary magazine, with the tweet : “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates – scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”

Musk, a man impervious to the opinions of others, almost seeming to delight in disapprobation, couldn’t handle something so indisputable. (His conniptions aren’t relevant here, except in so far as to say he had them.) Maybe what he minded was the idea that anyone else could be richer than him, even spiritually.

Oates’s new collection of short stories is The Frenzy, split into three parts, which, she says, “begins with people who are isolated from one another – girls becoming young adults, making their way. The second section is adults having their difficulties. Then it ends with two women really discovering the emotional impact of friendship. Two widows. I have a number of widowed friends and I have widower friends. It’s definitely so significant, so emotionally rich, and much of that richness is sharing the experience of loss. That’s probably what knits us together.”

In fact, that experience of bereavement is told through different lenses and different relationships throughout the book – bitter agony in one story, florid, hallucinatory grief in another. Even a character grieving a life not lived has a very widowed, which is to say “left behind”, flavour.

Oates was married for 48 years to Raymond J Smith, who edited the literary journal Ontario Review, which the couple co-founded in 1974. His sudden death in 2008, as a result of pneumonia, destroyed her. A Widow’s Story , her memoir of the aftermath, published in 2011, describes the loss in intricate detail – she loses not just her husband, but herself as a wife, as a writer, as everything. Seven months later, she met Charles Gross, a psychology professor at Princeton; they married in 2009. A decade on, he died. The practical details of that loss populate The Return, one of the short stories in The Frenzy.

But first, those young girls making their way. Strikingly, in each case, the interior voice of a young person, sometimes younger than 10, rings out – as if, for Oates, childhood was yesterday. “I remember it very well,” she says. “I have a natural affinity or identification with adolescent girls, and even adolescent boys, to an extent.” The condition of the artist and that of the teenager are analogous, she says. “They’re astute at seeing the inaccuracy and dishonesty, the compromises that adults make without thinking or being aware.”

She cites Nietzsche: “He spoke of the herd personality.” Then talks of Van Gogh: “You can see how alone he felt and how impassioned his brushwork was. There is no way that somebody like that would just fit in in a crowd.” It sounds as if she is saying that, for an artist, identity and alienation are inseparable, which would connote despair, at least as an element. “No, Nietzsche was filled with great enthusiasm, very optimistic about the future of humankind,” while Van Gogh’s tribulations were probably “biochemical”, she says, before conceding: “I think many writers, artists, poets are permanently in love; they yearn and they love. But the world doesn’t always reciprocate.”

While Oates describes the spine of this collection in neutral, even saccharine, terms – stages of the human life cycle, the power of friendship, wordless communication – most of the stories march to the drumbeat of male control and violence. She would hate that as a thematic description, such a coarse generalisation, so basic – and, indeed, she bats away the idea with a shake of the head. She is equally interested in female deficiencies, specifically maternal ones. “If your mother doesn’t protect you, you’re exposed,” she says. “Two close friends are both women whose mothers really failed them, just didn’t provide them with the protection and love they needed. I had a wonderful mother. My own mother was so, so loving.”

The question hanging, though, is what your mother should be there to protect you from ; so many of the inflection points in the heroines’ young lives are determined by predatory acts. That has been true since Oates’s stunning 1966 short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, based on the serial killer Charles Schmid, which was dedicated to Bob Dylan because she said the story was influenced by his song It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.

It would be flattening to say that rape and murder are the definitive life events around which her work circles – she has been taking inspiration from real and imagined worlds since her first literary love, Lewis Carroll, from whom she absorbed “this philosophical, very sceptical and playful consciousness”, seeded in 1967’s A Garden of Earthly Delights, the first in the Wonderland quartet. The violence of these celebrated novels is not only sexual; it is racial, social, subtle and literal.

“My writing isn’t usually explicitly violent,” she wrote in 1981 in a coldly furious essay entitled Why is Your Writing So Violent? , “but deals, most of the time, with the phenomenon of violence and its aftermath.” She finds the question itself sexist (and ignorant and insulting), because it betrays an infantilising idea that happiness is the default state expected of women, and doubly sexist when readers try to trace it back to violent events in her own family. Her paternal great-grandfather tried to kill his wife, then killed himself, while her grandmother, Blanche, was close by; Oates’s maternal grandfather was murdered. But the question answers itself: violence and its aftermath are everywhere. It is almost more interesting to ask why those authors who never touch on it feel the need to shelter us.

Yet there is something more specific in this new collection, distilled in one relationship where the husband always tries to avoid scenes with his wife, and, indeed, all female-male altercations, as Oates writes, “for essentially, it is the female perceiving the male as he is, and the male hoping to convince her that she is mistaken”. Or, if I can put that more bluntly, all the men are awful: the violent ones convince themselves they are not; the predators convince society they are generous; and the men who aren’t violent are tyrannical, loveless or absent. One scene, in which nothing more physical than hiking occurs, is so finely drawn and so oppressive that it leaves the reader, and indeed the male protagonist, with a deep petrification, an aversion to patriarchal control.

To be more literal-minded still, Oates must be finding her country’s strongman politics appalling, I say. Well, she responds, she came of age when the US was bitterly divided over Vietnam. “It’s almost exactly the same thing,” she says. The generations were utterly at odds and, until Trump came along, Nixon was the avatar of a “dishonest, conniving, criminally adjacent” president. Trump is worse, she concedes, insofar as he doesn’t seem to be afraid of the law and has made much more money out of his position.

What does she think about the modern condition? Of AI, she says: “A whole generation of young people – they can’t get jobs , they send as many as 1,000 letters of inquiry, they get AI rejections, sometimes they’re interviewed by AI. This is killing these young people.” Of living in a country “dominated by extreme wealth”, she says: “‘Wealthy’ is not a strong enough word to convey how much money these people have.” She has concerns about the millions they pour into politics to further their own ends. But she sets all this aside from her work, in which, she says, she is like most writers – “interested in people, in dramatic situations with other people”.

When she arrived at Syracuse University in 1956, “it was before the women’s movement in the United States. There wasn’t any articulated feminist organisation. So, when I was hoping to be a writer, I was in an arena whose mainstream was all male. Literature was all male. I studied philosophy at Syracuse and one of my professors told me that there was not much point in majoring in it because it was literally all men.”

Nonetheless, when the women’s movement did get going, she wasn’t at its centre: “I was friendly with activists, but that’s a whole different life, to be like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem – you’re going out, you’re organising, you’re finding money. I was always a writer and a very introverted person. I’m not really interested in that sort of propaganda writing. I’m happy to show women imperfect. I’m not out to be critical of men; I’m perfectly capable of having a male protagonist.”

Characteristically, Oates’s stance is at once incredibly simple and deeply complicated: the notion of the writer as outside the slipstream, observing civic life and its turbulence from, by preference, a considerable distance, is baked into her idea of herself. Yet her refusal to generalise – every aftermath, every victim is different, because every victim is still a person – almost brings politics back to its core purpose. Because if the point of it all isn’t the uniqueness, the preciousness, of every perspective, then it’s not really politics; it’s just a bunch of thugs telling you what to do.

Later, still loth to generalise, she says that plenty of writers and artists are political, naming Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. “But I’m not really like that,” she says. “I’m not really a proud person.” I don’t catch the word proud and have to ask her to repeat it; she does so twice, still quietly, like an echo from a myth, reminding you that pride isn’t a great idea.

The Bicycle Accident, the third story in The Frenzy, was published in the New Yorker to a huge response. It recalls an accident Oates had when she was 12. “I didn’t fall quite as hard as [the character] does,” she says, as if it is pure coincidence that she and her own creation had similar mishaps. “But I do remember the physical trauma and how I limped home. And I was bleeding and my clothes were torn, my skin was torn. When I was writing this story, it all came back, that visceral feeling of helplessness. And I thought: how would it be a story? It would be a story if the girl had that accident when she was fleeing. Fleeing from some disappointment of adults.”

It could serve as our collective noun, a disappointment of adults, and serve as her life’s work: trying to stay away from it, the better to describe it.

The Frenzy by Joyce Carol Oates (Random House USA, £27). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Pop and rock, Music, Culture, R&B
Title – Ibeyi: Offering review – French twin sisters master the balance between mysticism and edge | Pop and rock | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rachel-aroesti
Link – Ibeyi: Offering review – French twin sisters master the balance between mysticism and edge | Pop and rock | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T08:00:26.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/19/ibeyi-offering-review

H aving ceded creative control to numerous collaborators on 2022’s Spell 31 (veteran pop songwriter Eg White; rappers Pa Salieu and Berwyn), Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz return to first principles for their fourth album. Written mainly by the sisters themselves, Offering recentres Ibeyi in their own sonic universe: fusing the influences of their Cuban percussionist father and Parisian upbringing, the twins sing in multiple languages, summoning ancient lore over intricate beats, transcendent harmonies and brooding distortion.

Self-sufficiency crops up as a lyrical theme, too: “One thing is for sure, I’m who I was looking for,” goes the refrain of Baba, which matches incantatory vocals with an irresistibly grimy bassline. (Perhaps the fact this is being released on their own label rather than XL, the taste-making British indie they were previously signed to, is also relevant here.)

That said, it would be a contradiction to suggest Ibeyi are going back to basics: there has never been anything straightforward about their sound. It’s a heady brew that can overwhelm in large quantities, but this finely tuned, melodically strong collection provides the perfect dosage. The duo have mastered their Rosalía-like balance between otherworldly mysticism and grinding edge: on opener Olokun, urgent chanting about an ocean deity walks the line between euphoria and doom, while celestial R&B gets a gratifyingly industrial tinge on Moshpit. Yet it’s the truly heavenly vocal interplay on the spine-tingling Good Life that feels like the Diazes’ most impressive accomplishment: an offering you’d be a fool to refuse.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Spain, Saudi Arabia, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Lamine Yamal and Oyarzabal fire Spain to emphatic win against Saudi Arabia | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sidlowe
Link – Lamine Yamal and Oyarzabal fire Spain to emphatic win against Saudi Arabia | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T18:18:48.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/21/spain-saudi-arabia-world-cup-group-h-match-report

Luis de la Fuente said he wanted a new jumper for his birthday but this was even better. On the day the Spain coach turned 65, his players gifted him the perfect afternoon in Atlanta, the doubts from their opener blown away. Unable to find a way through in 97 minutes here against Cape Verde , this time they had celebrated putting three goals past Saudi Arabia before the first drinks break. Life is there to be enjoyed, Lamine Yamal had said, so they did. By the end it was four and it couldn’t have worked out any nicer.

This was exactly the way the coach would have wished it. Lamine Yamal scoring 10 minutes into his first start since suffering a hamstring injury in April. Mikel Oyarzabal adding two more in the first “quarter”, Marc Cucurella forcing the fourth on 49, victory secured so early that De la Fuente could withdraw those players who needed protecting and give minutes to those that needed them, Mikel Merino and Nico Williams invited to join the party too. Unai Simón was the last to arrive, not making a significant save until the 80th minute.

There were changes in personnel and structure from that first, disappointing day, but above all in personality: intense and aggressive, Spain were Spain again. “The ball ran,” De la Fuente said.

The new starters, Pedro Porro, Álex Baena and Dani Olmo, all made an impact; so too did the man for whom they had all been waiting. Lamine Yamal, the 18‑year‑old the Spain coach likened to Salvador Dalí and Michelangelo, was never going to get 90 minutes but nor did he need to: 45 were enough, job done and the winger withdrawn to fight another day.

This had begun at his feet. They had been playing only 41 seconds when Lamine Yamal’s Cruyff turn enabled him to escape Salem al‑Dawsari. That was the first of three key moments from the teenager inside four minutes, the expectation rising with every touch, intent in all of them. His presence changes everything, especially the mood. He got on the ball more than anyone in the first five minutes and had scored the opening goal inside 10.

There is something contagious about Lamine Yamal and he certainly wasn’t alone. With him drawing everyone in, Spain cut through Saudi Arabia even more on the other wing, which was where the opener came from. Baena’s neat pass with the outside of the boot set Oyarzabal free to deliver all the way across the six yard box. Lamine Yamal slid in at the far post to score. Skidding to his knees, released, he put his head on the turf and prayed. Only one player had ever scored a World Cup opener younger and that was Pelé.

The pass from Oyarzabal was impeccable and just the start. The striker, who had not had a touch in the first half an hour against Cape Verde, got an assist and two goals within 23 minutes here. The first of the two strikes came when Saudi Arabia made a mess of a corner and Aymeric Laporte leapt to provide clarity in the chaos, nodding down for him to finish for 2-0.

The next arrived just two minutes later and showcased Spain’s ambition with how high the full-backs were. Porro’s curling cross found Cucurella, who side‑footed back and, as if playing headers and volleys, Olmo headed on for Oyarzabal to score, all without letting the ball bounce: 3-0 and the favourites were healing.

Oyarzabal might have scored a third as well, a gorgeous shot with the outside of his foot coming back off the bar with Mohammed al-Owais out of his goal. No one talks about Oyarzabal, especially not Oyarzabal, but they should: that’s 14 goals and seven assists in his past 13 Spain games.

Still Spain came. De la Fuente admitted they had been “stung” by the reaction to the 0-0 draw with Cape Verde: provoked by the criticism, there was a point to prove and this was some way to prove it. With Pedri facing the game; Olmo finding spaces where appear to be none; and Rodri controlling, completing 113 passes, while Pau Cubarsí clocked up 98 of 99 attempts, the dominance was total. Spain’s possession, more than 70%, came with a purpose too.

“We want to say ‘here we are’,” Laporte insisted, and they were everywhere. Lamine Yamal even sprinted 60 yards to break up a rare Saudi attack, led by al-Dawsari just before half-time. Tired now, it was his last service here; it won’t be his last at the tournament which is even more important. Oyarzabal departed too at half-time, his work done, but Spain did not stop. From another badly defended corner Cucurella volleyed in the fourth, off Hassan Tambakti.

The changes came, Pedri and Baena following Lamine Yamal and Oyarzabal off. Merino and Williams came on to take another step towards rehabilitation as the game drifted towards the end. Although a brilliant ball from Williams almost saw Yéremi Pino score and Ferran Torres had a fifth taken away by the video assistant referee, De la Fuente had everything he could have wished for already. Happy birthday, boss.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Athletics, Sport, Dina Asher-Smith
Title – Amy Hunt beats Dina Asher-Smith to retain 100m crown at UK Championships | Athletics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ben-bloom
Link – Amy Hunt beats Dina Asher-Smith to retain 100m crown at UK Championships | Athletics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T19:57:32.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/20/amy-hunt-beats-dina-asher-smith-to-defend-100m-crown-at-uk-championships

For all that Britain possesses its fair share of truly world-class athletes, it is a rarity for two of them to line up in the same event. It is why the women’s sprints should be savoured.

Over the past couple of years, bragging rights between Amy Hunt and Dina Asher-Smith have repeatedly swung both ways. Last summer, Hunt claimed her first British 100m title in Asher-Smith’s absence, before ceding the 200m crown to her more experienced rival the following day when the pair clocked identical times. A few weeks on, Hunt won a memorable 200m silver ahead of Asher-Smith, who then hit back with the British 60m title earlier this year. To me, to you. And repeat.

On a cloudy Saturday evening in Birmingham Hunt reasserted her dominance in the latest edition of their contest, riding a helpful tailwind to overhaul the fast-starting Asher-Smith and successfully defend her British 100m crown in 11.01 seconds. A season’s best 11.13 for silver was Asher-Smith’s consolation.

“One of the things I said to myself today was that if I can’t win my own national trials then how am I expecting to win gold at Europeans?” said Hunt, 24, who broke the 11-second barrier for the first time this month and will bid for the European title back in Birmingham this summer.

Hunt said: “I really wanted to come here and put a statement out to all the other European girls and the British girls that I’m here, and I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

Asked about her rivalry with Asher-Smith, who still holds British records over all three sprint distances, Hunt said: “It’s so great. It shows that our national championships are one of the best in the world. Dina is one of the fastest athletes on the circuit, so I know when I come here I have to bring my A game. It’s been a really good one to get the victory.”

Where Hunt has steadily improved year upon year, Romell Glave said his first British 100m title had felt “a long time coming”.

Born and raised in Jamaica, he moved to south London aged 16 and made a name for himself the following year when a 10.21 run earned him the title of the world’s fastest 17-year-old. It has been a rollercoaster journey since, as he recovered from a career-threatening fractured back to win his first senior international medal with bronze at the 2024 European Championships.

Having exploited illegally strong tailwinds to run 9.88 and 9.90 already this season, he arrived in Birmingham as an unlikely favourite in a field of better-known names. He promptly responded with a personal best 9.98 for gold, dipping under 10 seconds legally for the first time.

In a blanket finish, British record holder Zharnel Hughes took silver in 10.01, with the former British champion Louie Hinchliffe claiming bronze in 10.03.

“I knew the talent was there, the potential was there, but I had to believe it, because through adversity this was my calling,” said Glave, 26. “Thanks to my support staff, my coach, they have been there for me through the ups and downs. They helped me to have that belief.

“This season has been a big change in my mental mindset, taking each day by day, and when it matters, I just shot. I’m running with freedom, because once you run with freedom, you’re more dangerous. Don’t be too respectful of the field. You give them respect, but you don’t give them too much. You have to be a bit nonchalant, which is what I did today. The mission now is to go to Europeans and strive for gold.”

The second day of UK Championships action features a host of finals, including the women’s 400m, with the Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson using the weekend as a speed workout over the one-lap distance. Hodgkinson advanced fifth fastest from the heats, with the British record holder Amber Anning leading the qualifiers.

The Olympic 400m silver medallist Matt Hudson-Smith also qualified fastest for his one-lap final, as did Jake Wightman and Georgia Hunter Bell in the 800m.

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Business, Economics, Stock markets, Oil, Iran, Commodities
Title – Pound and UK bonds holds steady as prime minister Keir Starmer confirms resignation – business live | Business | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kalyeena-makortoff
Link – Pound and UK bonds holds steady as prime minister Keir Starmer confirms resignation – business live | Business | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T09:12:47.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2026/jun/22/oil-prices-fall-stock-markets-rise-us-iran-peace-talks-trump-burnham-starmer-pound-ftse-hormuz-business-live

Markets seem to be appeased by news of a (relatively) standard leadership contest, which will shake out any policy positions from prospective prime minister before they take post.

That could help reduce any jitters from some corners of the market ove r Andy Burnham’s potential leadership. according to Richard Carter , head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot .

Carter says:

Markets are wary of Burnham’s previous policy positions so they would prefer to see ideas for governing fleshed out via a leadership contest, keeping surprises to a minimum.

There are difficult decisions around welfare and defence spending lurking, with each likely to have an impact on gilts and wider UK markets.

For now, given the economic team Burham has been putting in place, alongside the fact he does not appear to be seeking a new mandate, we are probably going to see more of a continuation of the current direction from the government.

Cabinet appointees will likely be scrutinised, however, for their growth friendly credentials.

Last week’s borrowing figures highlight just how messy this inheritance will be, and as such, there is unlikely to be any immediate silver bullet to the UK’s economic woes.

Without that new mandate, there is likely to be more tinkering with personal taxation around the edges and as such that will weigh on growth.

UK gilt yields are also broadly unchanged, signalling investors have long expected this change at the top of UK government.

The yield on the benchmark ‌10-year UK gilt is up 1 basis point on the day at 4.85%, unchanged from where they were prior to the announcement.

Pound holds lower after Starmer confirms resignation

Markets appear to have broadly priced in Keir Starmer’ s resignation, with the pound having moved little on the news.

Sterling has pared losses but is still in the red, down 0.2% at £1.32, though part of this is due to a rising US dollar which has gained ground on progress in the US-Iran peace talks.

Starmer has tried to lay out an orderly transition, saying he has asked the national executive of the Labour party to set out a transition timetable, with nominations for new leaders opening 9 July and completed by summer recess on 16 July.

He said that will ensure a new leader in place before parliament returns in September.

Starmer said he will remain in post as prime minister until the context is complete, and promised to give his “full and unequivocal support” to whoever takes his place.

Starmer confirms he is resigning

Prime minister Keir Starmer has taken the lectern outside Downing Street listing the progress made by Labour government, before confirmed he is resigning.

“Every decision I’ve taken has been about putting the country I love, first…that is why I will resign as leader of the Labour party.”

You can follow the play-by-play of Starmer’s resignation address in our Politics live blog here:

Pound near 2026 low as PM Keir Starmer expected to announce resignation timetable

Sterling is down, trading near its lowest level so far this year, as investors await news of prime minister Keir Starmer’s resignation timetable.

The pound is trading down by about 0.35% at 1.3191, with all eyes on how markets will react to news of what is expected to be a baton pass to Andy Burnham.

Eurozone bond yields have also dropped slightly, thanks in part to momentary relief over US-Iran peace talk progress, amid hopes it could ease geopolitical tensions and war-related inflation that reduce the prospect of further ECB rate rises.

The yield on Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond yield was down 2 basis points at 2.966% this morning. (This is after having climbed 6 basis points on Friday after peace talks were abruptly called off)

It also comes as ECB president Christine Lagarde is set to appear in front of European parliament’s committee on economic and monetary affairs in Brussels this afternoon, starting at 2pm BST.

Her comments will come after the ECB became the first big central bank to raise interest rates since the start of the Iran war, earlier this month.

While financial markets had been expecting two more ECB rate rises by next March, the weekend’s peace talks have tempered those forecasts.

Brent crude prices at lowest level since March

Oil prices are trading at their lowest level since March, though analysts say it may be too early to peg hopes on a sustained drop in energy prices despite progress in US-Iran peace talks this weekend.

Stephen Innes , an analyst with SPI Asset Management, says it is important “not to overcook Monday’s oil move” :

Brent shorts had built meaningfully last week, so part of the early upside looks like traders taking risk down rather than launching into a full-blown conflict trade.

When positioning has leaned too far into calm, it does not take much tension to force a little oxygen back into the price. That is less a declaration of war than a reminder that carrying shorts into a geopolitical negotiation is rarely a comfortable overnight position.

Patrick Wintour and Jonathan Yerushalmy Iran’s foreign minister has declared “progress” after the first day of talks between high-ranking officials from Washington and Tehran ended in Switzerland, despite a tense opening marked by Donald Trump threats to restart attacks.

A joint statement from mediators Qatar and Pakistan said the ⁠US and Iran agreed to a roadmap towards⁠ a final deal within 60 days. Technical talks between lower-ranked officials ​will continue for the rest of the week, according to the statement, with fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon at the top of the agenda.

“Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end Lebanon war,” said Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, after talks broke up just after 3am local time (1am GMT).

The joint statement said the US and Iran agreed to establish a “communication line” to avoid incidents in the strait of Hormuz, and to set up a “deconfliction cell” with Lebanon’s government to ensure the “adherence of the termination of military operations in Lebanon”.

In a development that is critical to unlocking progress, the US Treasury was also preparing to issue a 60-day waiver lifting sanctions on oil, petrochemicals and derivatives. Iran said this meant its central bank would be able to sell oil to customers, principally China, and receive payments without the threat of sanctions.

Qatar and Iran also signed a memorandum about the release of Iranian assets frozen in Qatar bank accounts due to US secondary sanctions. It was not clear whether the US had placed any restrictions on Iran’s use of the assets, such as demanding the money only be spent on humanitarian goods.

The economic measures may help lift some of the pressure in Iran’s exchange markets, and gradually slow runaway inflation, the country’s biggest domestic concern at present.

Read more here:

European stocks are kicking off the week on a positive note, amid news of progress on US-Iran peace talks.

Here’s how they are looking at the start of trading:

FTSE 100 is up 0.11%

France’s CAC 40 is up 0.15%

Spain’s IBEX is up 0.08%

Germany’s Dax is up 0.22%

Pan-European Stoxx 600 is up 0.11%

Introduction: Oil prices fall, stocks rise on reports of ‘progress’ in Iran-US peace talks

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Investors are pegging hopes on to reports of progress in the US-Iran peace talks, helping ease market jitters that have weighed on stocks and sent energy prices soaring.

A first round of talks between US and Iranian officials in Switzerland this weekend reportedly ended on a positive note, with the Iranian foreign ministry saying good progress had been made, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Officials from Qatar and Pakistan, who have been acting as mediators, also said the US and Iran had agreed a roadmap that would seal a final deal within 60 days.

That may feel like a long way off, but it has been enough to calm oil markets, sending Brent crude prices down more than 2% and below $80 a barrel, at $78.90, a significant drop from its May peak of $126.41.

The news has also lifted stock prices in Asia. The Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.8% this morning, while South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.6% and the MSCI ’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.8%. Chinese blue chips stocks rose 1.6%.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya , a senior analyst at Swissquote, says it’s a bit of relief after a weekend of uncertainty:

The week starts on a surprisingly positive note despite the uncertainty surrounding the US/Iran peace talks, which took several twists over the weekend.

On Friday, the talks were postponed (likely due to Israel’s renewed attack on Lebanon).

On Saturday, Iran announced that it would close the strait of Hormuz again.

Yet senior US and Iranian officials still met at Switzerland’s Bürgenstock resort on Sunday, to kick off the 60-day negotiation period.

They said the talks went well. Meanwhile, US President Trump continued to post threats on social media. And here we are, Monday morning.

The agenda

2pm BST: ECB President Christine Lagarde appears before the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs commottee

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Family, Mental health, Relationships
Title – Oliver’s mum was a narcissist and his dad avoidant. His own breakup forced him to address his dysfunctional childhood | Nicholas Purcell | The Guardian
Author – Nicholas Purcell
Link – Oliver’s mum was a narcissist and his dad avoidant. His own breakup forced him to address his dysfunctional childhood | Nicholas Purcell | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T15:00:35.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/childhood-trauma-learnt-behaviours-narcissist-mother-avoidant-father-dysfunctional-adulthood

W e inherit more than eye colour and bone structure from our parents. We inherit rules, silences, habits, beliefs. We inherit the shape of our parents’ presence or absence, the flavour of their neglect and the confusion of thinking this is love.

Every week in my therapy practice I meet people living out their inheritance, their family dysfunction: re-enacting childhoods, becoming the parents they despised, clinging to survival strategies that are slowly killing them. “I think I have a problem,” they tell me, “but I can’t see it.”

American writer David Foster Wallace summarised the problem well:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

A fish doesn’t know it’s wet. A child doesn’t know her childhood is unhealthy.

While physical abuse leaves marks, covert dysfunction is absorbed as normal and most of us don’t question what feels normal. It can remain unrecognised until someone else – a spouse, a friend or a therapist – points it out. Sometimes loss, such as a divorce, is required for us to finally accept something fundamental, something we assumed was normal, needs reconsideration.

Oliver’s* father had spent the last 15 years of his life sleeping on a pullout sofa in his study. He even had a stationery cupboard converted into a wardrobe and used Post-it notes to communicate with his wife – it was a spectacular commitment to avoidance. He wasn’t the only family member to avoid Oliver’s narcissistic mother, a woman with strong but warped opinions. “Darling, you can’t date her, she works in a shop .” Oliver imitated his mother’s plummy Margaret Thatcher accent. “People like us don’t associate with people in service .” While the absurdity of that statement might be obvious, it wasn’t for young Oliver. What Oliver heard was that his family was special; what he didn’t hear was the silent second part: “ … and therefore alone, and therefore unable to seek help because needing help means you’re not special.” This is what I mean about water. You can be drowning and not realise it.

Despite rejecting his mother and idealising his absent father, Oliver had taken on features of both. He was highly avoidant in relationships and chased sexual conquests with the same desperate energy his mother pursued social status. Raised by a mother with a disordered personality, it was inevitable he would absorb narcissistic traits. When a family member urged him to try therapy, Oliver cut contact. When his long-term partner finally left (“You’re exactly like her, you know that?”), Oliver spiralled into depression. That’s when he found his way to therapy.

He was enraged at his partner: “I’m nothing like my mother! Who does she think she is!” I challenged that statement; Oliver couldn’t see he had partly absorbed what he hated. I asked him – quietly, carefully – why he thought different people kept making the same connection. He defended and justified himself and looked angry but eventually we sat in silence for a long time. “But I … ” he started and couldn’t finish. The air went out of him. Oliver glimpsed himself, finally, and it nearly broke him.

The dysfunctional things that happened are easier to see. What’s harder to grasp are the things that didn’t happen – emotional safety, stability, nurturing. I asked another client, Kate*, how she survived 25 years in a marriage where she felt completely alone. The answer was in her childhood bedroom. She had spent her early years alone in her bedroom silently eating toast she had made herself. At age six she was making and packing her own school lunches. By seven she was taking her younger sister to school on public transport. She learned early to never ask for help. For Kate, neglect was normal . Kate swam in loneliness.

While seeing the water is hard, getting out is harder. Kate, now a nurse – perhaps inevitably – took a long time to open up. She understood intellectually the connection between her lonely childhood and lonely marriage, but admitted feeling deeply uncomfortable being vulnerable. I tried to slow the pacing within our sessions, but even that felt like too much. In our last session, Kate sat with her arms wrapped around a cushion, looking at the carpet. We’d been talking about what it might mean to leave her marriage. What it would require of her. To believe she deserved something.

“I’ll think about it,” she said. We scheduled another appointment, but I felt the particular unease I feel when I sense a client isn’t coming back. Maybe it was the way she wouldn’t quite meet my eyes, or a slight pitch change. I hoped she would, but I understand why some don’t. Some see the water but choose to stay submerged. The alternative – opening yourself up when you’ve spent a lifetime closed – means feeling everything, all at once. For some people, that doesn’t seem survivable.

What haunts me is not so much the patients sitting in my office, it’s those who never arrive. How many people are losing decades – entire lives – in water they can’t see? And even when they do see the water, sometimes, like Kate, that isn’t enough. Not every adult escapes their childhood. Some do – slowly, painfully, one breath at a time – but for many, the water is just too deep.

Oliver comes to me on Thursdays. The work of learning a new way of being – one without his mother’s narcissism or his father’s avoidance – is ongoing. Sometimes I see his mother’s snarl superimposed on his face, then his father’s silence dominates, and then there’s this other thing: Oliver showing up, catching himself. I don’t know who will win. Learning what a healthy relationship feels like takes time, but now, at least, Oliver knows what water is.

Kate stayed in the water. Oliver is trying to surface. I don’t know which takes more courage: the staying or the struggling. Maybe they’re the same courage, just differently expressed. Maybe we’re all just doing the best we can with the inheritance we got.

*All clients are fictional amalgams

In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org

Nicholas Purcell is a relationship psychotherapist based in Adelaide. He is writing Raising Love, on why our theory of love is broken – and what an active one looks like

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Cape Verde, Uruguay, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Cape Verde produce another World Cup shock as Varela strike seals Uruguay draw | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ewanmurray
Link – Cape Verde produce another World Cup shock as Varela strike seals Uruguay draw | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T00:28:46.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/22/cape-verde-uruguay-world-cup-group-h-match-report

Wow. The continuation of Cape Verde’s fairytale may have serious repercussions for Marcelo Bielsa and Uruguay. The heroics of Cape Verde in holding Spain to a draw mean Uruguay should have been forewarned and forearmed in Florida. Instead, this tiny nation with a population equivalent to that of Bristol embarrassed World Cup aristocracy once more. What fun, what glorious fun.

Uruguay now head into Group H’s final game against Spain with their tournament involvement in serious jeopardy. Uruguay had already failed to beat Saudi Arabia . Cape Verde will hold high and legitimate hopes of seeing off the Saudis on Friday. They might not even need to, with an aggregate of three points from another draw potentially good enough for the last 32. The Blue Sharks, swimming in bigger waters than ever before, are the story of this World Cup. Uruguay have desperately underperformed thus far.

“We are here to compete and achieve a new dream, which is to qualify for the second round,” said the Cape Verde head coach, Bubista. “We are now at the point where we can say we will definitely fight for qualification.”

Bielsa bemoaned his team’s mood when the game reached 2-2. The 70-year-old faced an audibly irked Uruguayan media. “The team was highly disorganised,” Bielsa said. “We would attack while running the risk of them scoring against us at the end of the match. We could have won the match and we also could have lost the match. Undoubtedly, Uruguay is a better squad than Cape Verde. But this has to be shown.

“We have the need and the obligation to beat Spain. It is a gargantuan challenge for all of us.” Bielsa added Ronald Araújo will not return from injury for that game.

Twenty minutes had been played. Kevin Pina lined up a free-kick, 28 yards from goal. The two-man wall inexplicably broke, allowing Pina’s fierce shot to hurtle towards Fernando Muslera. Uruguay’s veteran goalkeeper could not adjust his feet quickly enough, the ball flying past him to hand Cape Verde the lead. Cameras panned to a euphoric Ana Candida Evora in the stands ; the mother of Cape Verde’s goalkeeper Vozinha had feared she would miss this occasion in Miami due to cost. What a moment, not only for Evora. Bubista – dressed in blue denim and a T-shirt – was upstaging the renowned Bielsa.

Uruguay jabbed back. Nonetheless, the two goals in the dying embers of the first half which felt hugely significant were only to stir a response from those in red. Cape Verde’s offering to this game and this World Cup must be savoured. They have not only capable players but fearless ones. A team that epitomise everything that is good about the underdog.

Pina’s goal came amid early stages where Uruguay wasted their dominance of possession. Cape Verde’s players had swayed in unison during their national anthem. They were soon to rock Bielsa. More than once.

Cape Verde seemed to draw confidence from Garry Rodrigues, whose touch and electric pace left Guillermo Varela for dust. Pina soon sparked wild scenes among the tiny contingent in the stands who were dressed in blue. Not content with holding Spain, Cape Verde wanted a scalp. Pina will go down in history as the scorer of his nation’s maiden World Cup goal. Uruguayan panic was summed up by Muslera, who scrambled to bat away a cross-cum-shot from Sidny Cabral.

Cape Verde will be angry at the manner in which Uruguay apparently turned this fixture back in their favour. Rodrigo Bentancur’s header deflected off Cabral and on to a post before rebounding into the six-yard area. Maximiliano Araújo was standing in splendid isolation there, the Sporting man stooping and heading in for 1-1. Moments earlier, Telmo Arcanjo had attempted to lob Muslera from 75 yards. The attempt was needless; Cape Verde were worrying Uruguay with direct running.

Uruguay nudged ahead with seconds of first-half stoppage time remaining. The interval scoreline was unquestionably harsh on their opponents. Again, the goal was beyond soft from a defensive standpoint. Araújo headed the ball into the path of Agustín Canobbio, who was totally unmarked. Another blissfully easy finish from close range allowed the vast ranks of Uruguay fans to relax. Likewise applied to Luis Suárez, who watched from a corporate box. Arcanjo had been assisted with cramp by Federico Viñas before the Uruguay man sensed opportunity, promptly dropping his opponent’s leg. It was a bizarre scene in keeping with an impulsive game. Bubista said he was “frustrated” by the episode.

The two-time World Cup winners had not factored in Cape Verde’s wonderful, indomitable spirit. Or, indeed, defensive calamity. Having received a throw-in, Mathías Olivera played a blind ball right across his own goal. No wonder he was to cover his head with his shirt within seconds. Muslera was in no man’s land, which allowed Helio Varela to steal in. Showing great composure given the circumstances, Varela stroked the ball home before leading his teammates on a celebratory dance. This marked Varela’s first goal for his country. What a time to produce it.

Uruguay thought they had taken the lead as Araújo bundled the ball over the line, only for offside to be called for earlier in the move. This saved the blushes of Vozinha, who had spilled the ball.

Uruguay’s finest spell of the game followed. Doubtless through awareness of a bigger section picture, Uruguay frantically chased the fifth goal of the night. An outstanding Steven Moreira block denied Bielsa’s men the lead. Federico Valverde cracked a free-kick narrowly over Vozinha’s bar. Canobbio lacked calmness when through on goal. Cape Verde were hemmed in but so resilient. Players celebrated defensive wins with exuberance.

Eight minutes of stoppage time remarkably concluded with Cape Verde on the front foot. Bielsa sat motionless on his Powerade box. He and Uruguay are in trouble now.

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Albania, Europe, World news
Title – People in Albania: share your thoughts on the recent ‘not for sale’ protests | Albania | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-community-team
Link – People in Albania: share your thoughts on the recent ‘not for sale’ protests | Albania | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T14:13:14.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/16/people-in-albania-share-your-thoughts-on-the-recent-not-for-sale-protests

For the last two weeks, Albanians have been protesting against a planned luxury resort backed by a company linked to Jared Kushner , the son-in-law of Donald Trump , near Vlora.

If it goes ahead, the development would occupy parts of an environmentally sensitive area which includes the uninhabited outcrop of Sazan and wetlands and coastal habitats in the surrounding marine national park – home to the Mediterranean monk seal and more than 200 bird species – including flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans, according to BirdLife International .

On Saturday, villagers from Rrjoll, located in an area of sandy beaches and pine forests in north-western Albania , protested against another development project , saying it was being built on their confiscated land.

We would like to hear from Albanians about what they think about the development project.

f you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Music, Culture, Disco, Pop and rock
Title – ‘Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love makes you move your body’: Gloria Gaynor’s honest playlist | Music | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rich-pelley
Link – ‘Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love makes you move your body’: Gloria Gaynor’s honest playlist | Music | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T08:00:25.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/21/gloria-gaynor-honest-playlist-marvin-gaye-beyonce

The first song I fell in love with I grew up in Newark, New Jersey, with five brothers and one sister, so there was always music in the house. I remember my mom singing Willow Weep for Me when I was five or six. There was something about the sadness in it that really moved me.

The first single I bought I heard Why Do Fools Fall in Love by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers on the radio and bought it from a local record store. I was singing in the hallway of our building when a neighbour leaned over and asked: “Gloria, was that you singing?” She thought it was the radio. That was the moment I decided I was going to be a singer.

The song I do at karaoke I’ve only done karaoke once – about 20 years ago, for my birthday. Someone dared me to get up and sing I Will Survive as if I were drunk. I thought: if you’re going to do it, you might as well commit. So I did – and I nailed it.

The song I inexplicably know every lyric to Every Little Bit Hurts by Alicia Keys. I sympathised with the unrequited love in the lyrics, having suffered the same feeling as a young girl.

The best song to play at a party Crazy in Love by Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z, because it’s a fun song that makes you want to move your body the moment it comes on.

The song I can no longer listen to Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel by Tavares, because my ex-husband used to sing it to me. Now I can’t listen to it without it reminding me of him.

The best song to have sex to Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye because it’s got a sexy groove, the right tempo, and the words have the right vibe.

The song that changed my life Never Can Say Goodbye was my first major hit, and it changed everything. Suddenly there were more shows, bigger audiences and opportunities to travel the world. It took me from being someone with a dream to someone who was living it.

The song that gets me up in the morning Great Is Thy Faithfulness. It’s a traditional gospel song, but I love the version by Carrie Underwood.

The song that makes me cry Amazing Grace: my version opens my last album. Every time I sing it, it touches something deep in my spirit. It reminds me of how God’s grace has carried me through my life.

The song I want played at my funeral A song I wrote called I Want to See You. It’s about reunion – about seeing your loved ones again in heaven. That’s the message I’d want to leave behind.

Gloria Gaynor headlines Boogietown in Walton-on-Thames, on 11 July.