Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Iran, US news, JD Vance, Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, Israel, US-Israel war on Iran, Middle East and north Africa, Switzerland, World news
Title – US-Iran talks in Switzerland get under way as strait of Hormuz remains closed | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – US-Iran talks in Switzerland get under way as strait of Hormuz remains closed | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T12:25:52.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/us-iran-talks-jd-vance-switzerland-strait-of-hormuz-lebanon

Talks between Iran and the US aimed at building out the fragile interim deal to end the war have got under way in Switzerland, beset by difficulties including an Iranian decision to keep the strait of Hormuz closed in protest at Donald Trump’s inability to force Israel to end the fighting in Lebanon.

The US vice-president, JD Vance , leading the US delegation, said he was adding Lebanon to an agenda that had originally been conceived to focus on the opening of the strait, the lifting of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports and the unfreezing of Iranian assets held overseas.

Vance arrived at a Qatari-owned Swiss mountainside resort in Bürgenstock early on Sunday to meet Iranian negotiators for the second time since the months-long conflict began. He has already held direct talks with the Iranians in Islamabad.

The Iranian delegation is led by the speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, but the presence of the deputy oil minister and the governor of Iran’s central bank shows how Iran had wanted to focus on the terms for lifting sanctions.

The first clause of the memorandum of understanding published last week requires a ceasefire on all fronts including Lebanon , where fighting has escalated between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Vance said: “I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re to be focused on.” He said he could join the talks only “for a day or two”.

The Swiss foreign ministry said the US and Iranian delegations, plus mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, were all present at the luxury resort.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said Iran was meeting mediators in the morning and would then hold a four-way meeting with the mediators and the US in the afternoon.

The practical impact of the Iranian decision to keep the strait of Hormuz closed is yet to be tested, but Trump said last week that the world was four weeks from running out of sufficient refined oil, and said there would have been worldwide recession if he had not agreed to the strait’s reopening by lifting the US blockade on Iranian oil ports.

He is under fierce attack from US supporters of Israel who are angry at the personal attacks mounted on the Israeli prime minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, by Trump and Vance.

The Iranian delegation arrived in Switzerland with a furious row exploding in Tehran between advocates of negotiations and those that insist pursuing an agreement with the US is purposeless because the US cannot be trusted.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a long-term critic of the negotiations and a member of the delegation that went to Islamabad, claimed the negotiations being pursued were “fundamentally different” to the conditions originally approved by the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. Last week, Khamenei published a letter saying he opposed the talks but in deference to the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had permitted the talks to proceed so long as the interests of the axis of resistance – a reference to Hezbollah – were protected.

Nabavian’s appearance on state TV was cut short and it was announced legal action would be taken against him. A senior official from the state broadcaster Irib was reportedly to resign.

During his appearance, Nabavian claimed correspondence had been sent by the supreme leader three times limiting the scope of the proposed talks. He claimed that in one letter referring to the Islamabad talks, Khamenei wrote: “What was achieved in the negotiations is completely different from what was supposed to be done and was a condition for the legitimacy of the negotiations.”

Referring to the management of the strait of Hormuz, Nabavian said: “The leader of the revolution has emphasised Iran’s monopoly on the management of the strait of Hormuz, collecting tolls from passing vessels, restrictions on enemy ships, and allocating the revenues from the tolls to the people, families of martyrs, and veterans.”

The claim that Iran’s negotiators may be ignoring the guidelines set by the supreme leader would be regarded as a very serious charge inside Iran.

Pezeshkian tried to calm the mood, saying: “All the provisions of the memorandum of understanding signed between Iran and the United States are in our favour, and the achievements of this dialogue and negotiation will be made clear.”

Pezeshkian said the words of the US president had changed 180 degrees. “Trump, who forbade us from doing many things, in his recent speech considered all of them the right of the people and the nation. Our $6bn in money will be returned from Qatar.”

Pointing out that Netanyahu was the first to be dissatisfied with the negotiations, he added: “The achievements of this dialogue and negotiation will be revealed. All the provisions of the memorandum are in our favour.”

The only American demand “is that we not have atomic bombs; this is something that the martyred leader has said many times: ‘We do not want atomic bombs.’ The United States said ‘write this and sign it’ and we signed.”

There remained scepticism from Tehran, however, with Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Khamenei, posting on X: “The enemy has shown itself to be a promise-breaker.” He said: “One should be cautious; any optimism will be exploited by the enemy.”

Hojjatoleslam Sadeghi, the supreme leader’s representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said: “Our enmity with arrogance will never end. We are not negotiating to reconcile, but rather to get our rights.”

Washington announced a renewed ceasefire in Lebanon later on Friday, but Israeli troops again clashed with Hezbollah fighters the following day, with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce. Citing a US “breach of contract”, Iran’s central military command said it was closing the strait of Hormuz to vessel traffic.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Brexit, European Union, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Europe, World news, Foreign policy, Politics, UK news
Title – Two-thirds of EU citizens back UK rejoining bloc, survey finds | Brexit | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonhenley
Link – Two-thirds of EU citizens back UK rejoining bloc, survey finds | Brexit | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T05:00:21.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/two-thirds-eu-citizens-back-uk-rejoining-bloc-brexit-survey

Two-thirds of EU citizens would back Britain rejoining the bloc, while most UK voters say Brexit has been bad for the issues they care about and want closer ties, including levels of integration – such as free movement – long seen as toxic, a survey has found.

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, the polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) , a thinktank, found 66% of respondents across 15 countries felt UK membership was a very good, good or “neither a good nor a bad” idea.

The average comfortably exceeded those favouring a closer relationship (59%) or the status quo (46%). Support for rejoin ranged from lows of 56% in Bulgaria and 59% in France and Italy to highs of 75% in the Netherlands and Denmark.

Even voters for far-right and EU-critical parties said they would support closer relations between the bloc and the UK, including a majority of backers of Poland’s Confederation (71%), Germany’s AfD (58%) and France’s National Rally (58%).

Many European leaders have reflected this view. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said the door is “always open” and Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said Spain would “absolutely” support British membership.

Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, has explicitly named the UK as a candidate for membership, saying: “We need a UK voice in Europe. We really miss you guys.” In May, the European Green party formally invited the UK to rejoin .

In the UK, the polling, carried out in May, found voters across party lines, including supporters of Reform UK, believed Brexit had had a negative impact on the country and on many key issues at the heart of the debate a decade ago.

British respondents said leaving had hit their main priorities: the cost of living (66%), the economy (65%), youth opportunity (57%), illegal immigration (56%) and trade (56%). Even most leave voters (58%) said Brexit had made illegal immigration worse.

Asked to identify the primary benefits of Brexit, the most common response, by a wide margin, was “don’t know”, followed closely by “none of the above” – suggesting most British voters now feel Brexit did real damage for no apparent upside.

That overwhelmingly negative verdict on the decision to leave translates into a strong desire for a closer relationship with the bloc: 75% of UK respondents were in favour. Asked about trade and economic ties, 66% said they should be very or slightly closer.

Perhaps most strikingly, a large majority (63%) of respondents – including 57% of those who voted leave in 2016 – said they would now accept freedom of movement in exchange for closer trading ties, with only 18% rejecting it.

Even among voters who said their top concern was immigration, 44% said they would back freedom of movement as part of a closer economic relationship, suggesting one of the core drivers of the Brexit vote is no longer central to the UK debate.

The report’s author, Mark Leonard, the director of the ECFR, said the polling showed the EU was open to the UK’s return and that the British public had fundamentally moved on from 2016 – meaning Europe was now a political opportunity for the UK government.

“Brexit was the insurgent vehicle for a nation rejecting the status quo,” he said. “A decade on, Brits realise their hopes for a better life outside the EU are unfulfilled and Brexit is undermining the UK’s ability to manage the issues they care about most.”

Leonard added that the data showed the “vast majority of citizens are open to a closer relationship”, revealing the existence of a “very broad permissive consensus for going far beyond the government’s current reset”.

The report identified three main voter camps in the UK: “optimists” (28%) who view European alignment as a geopolitical necessity; “realists” (35%) who support closer ties but still value US ties; and “loners” (27%) who still prioritise national sovereignty.

Overall, the survey found British voters favoured Europe over the US as a preferred security partner, with just 18% now viewing the US as an ally and 58% favouring closer defensive relations with Europe, compared with 19% for the US.

A majority of British voters do not want to buy more weapons from the US, while more than 60% would prefer to follow a “buy European” policy. Almost two-thirds (63%) also want the UK to participate in developing an alternative European nuclear deterrent.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Donald Trump, US-Israel war on Iran, US news, US politics, Feminism, Women, Washington DC
Title – DC’s ‘renovated’ pool reflects the Trump administration’s dangerous hubris | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/arwa-mahdawi
Link – DC’s ‘renovated’ pool reflects the Trump administration’s dangerous hubris | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T12:00:02.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/20/trump-renovated-pool-hubris

Trump has spent millions creating a giant swamp in DC

It’s been a busy week for the US’s birthday boy. First, there was the cage fight on the White House lawn, in honour of the United States’ 250th anniversary and Donald Trump’s 80th. Then, after watching sweaty men fight, the president flew to France to try to sort out the mess he’d helped create in the Middle East. I regret to inform you that despite Trump signing what Jimmy Kimmel called “the retreaty of Versailles”, it does not really look like the Iran war has been sorted out. Still, the president seems happy with himself. After Axios asked what his takeaways from the Iran war were, Trump said he believes there are “ no limits ” to his power.

The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool would beg to differ. In between the cage fights and a catastrophic war, Trump has been waging a very expensive battle with the algae in the famous monument, which was the scene of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech . The president has spent $14.2m trying to make the “filthy” and “dirty” pool into the resort-like water feature of his own dreams. Alas, he has proved quite powerless against the algae blooms.

To be fair to Trump, algae is an aggressive adversary. Ever since the Washington landmark was built in 1922, the 2,000ft reflecting pool has been plagued with leaks and algae blooms that turn the water green. There have been various attempts to fix these issues, including a $34m renovation of the monument in 2012, during the Obama administration, but the problems keep coming back. Enter Trump, a walking case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect, who vowed to fix the problem once and for all. During an event in April, Trump explained that he’d “probably built more than 100 swimming pools” and had “a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools”. The reflecting pool is not actually a swimming pool but forget about that little detail. According to Trump, he’d do what no other president had been capable of doing and clean up the whole thing in “two weeks”. He reiterated this “ two week ” timeline at events on 7 May and 11 May.

About eight weeks later, a firm employed via a dubious no-bid contract has painted the bottom of the pool “American-flag blue” and turned on some nanobubblers. The renovation is over and Trump has declared victory in the Trumpiest way possible. “The advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae … ,” the interior department press team wrote on X . “The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool – just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”

Whether it’s Iran or a reflecting pool, Trump seems to think you can just ignore all the inconvenient facts on the ground and unilaterally declare victory. Alas, the world doesn’t actually work like that. Iran is now arguably stronger than it was before Trump waged war, and the reflecting pool does not look much better than before the president started his renovations. Indeed, the pool is green again , and peeling paint has been seen floating in the water . The algae appear to be very much undefeated. According to the Washington Post: “Within days of the renovation’s completion, the Reflecting Pool had more algae in it than at any recorded point in the month of June for at least five years .” Trump has effectively spent a lot of money creating a giant swamp in DC.

It’s all just a little bit too on-the-nose, isn’t it? There are obviously more important things going on than the president’s ill-fated attempts to clean up the reflecting pool but the entire endeavor is a perfect reflection of the Trump administration’s dangerous hubris.

Giorgia Meloni says Trump ‘totally invented’ story that she begged him for photo

“She wanted a picture with me so badly,” Trump told the media after chatting to Italy’s prime minister at a G7 summit. “I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her.” Meloni, who was once a big Trump fan, is fuming about these remarks, and the Italian foreign minister announced he was cancelling a planned visit to the US next week.

Japanese mayor takes maternity leave – and starts a debate

“I didn’t expect it to be so controversial,” Shoko Kawata, Japan’s youngest female mayor, told the Guardian after her decision to take maternity leave in May caused a national brouhaha. “If more women are involved in leadership and decision-making,” she said, “we will be able to implement more social systems to support balancing a career with family life.”

HPV vaccines massively cut the risk of dying from cervical cancer

A new study funded by Cancer Research UK estimates that a girl who gets the HPV jab when she’s 12 or 13 has an almost-zero chance of dying of cervical cancer before the age of 30.

Nearly 160 people sick with flu at military base after Pete Hegseth ends mandatory vaccines

In April, the defense secretary announced he’d end mandatory flu vaccination because of the importance of bodily autonomy. “Your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable,” the defense secretary said . Unless you’re a woman, I guess: Hegseth’s self-identified Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson has opposed a woman’s right to vote and said : “Women are the kind of people that people come out of.”

Shania Twain is afraid of using the F-word

“I don’t see myself as a feminist,” she told the Times in a recent interview. “I see myself as a very independent thinker and not necessarily because I’m a woman.” A few days later, she wrote to the Times to say “feminist” is “a tricky word for me” but she aligns with “the values and morals” of feminism. This is not the first time the Canadian singer has walked back an awkward comment. Back in 2018, she apologized for telling the Guardian she would have voted for Trump if she could have.

Medication abortion restored in Missouri

This comes after a long legal battle.

‘The British state has redefined civil disobedience as terrorism’

Last week, four Palestine Action activists who smashed military equipment at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK factory were sentenced as terrorists. This is a chilling ruling that opens up the path for direct-action protest targeting property to be classified as terrorism. Writing in the Key, Geoffrey Robertson, a renowned lawyer and founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, proclaims that the “British state has redefined civil disobedience as terrorism – lengthening sentences, stripping prison privileges, and marking dissenters for life – as a result of a finding made in secret by a judge”.

The week in pawtriarchy

Romeow, Romeow, wherefore art thou, Romeow? A cat in Turkey decided to find out for itself by wandering onstage during the final scene of a Romeo and Juliet purr-formance by the Imperial Russian Ballet Company. It sat down next to a “dead” Romeo and sniffed his head for a bit before getting distracted by Juliet’s dress. Onlookers were highly amewsed.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – MotoGP, Motor sport, Motorcycling, Sport
Title – Marco Bezzecchi banned from Czech MotoGP race after slapping track steward | MotoGP | The Guardian
Author – AFP
Link – Marco Bezzecchi banned from Czech MotoGP race after slapping track steward | MotoGP | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T09:04:27.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/21/motogp-marco-bezzecchi-czech-grand-prix-slap-steward

The MotoGP championship leader Marco Bezzecchi was banned from Sunday’s Czech GP after slapping a track steward in the face after a crash in Saturday’s sprint, MotoGP said on Sunday.

The 27-year-old Italian Aprilia Racing rider crashed out of the sprint with two laps to go. Footage on TNT Sports showed Bezzecchi running towards a steward, pushing him and then slapping him in the face as the steward was standing over his bike in the gravel.

“Bezzecchi will not take part in the Czech GP,” MotoGP said on its website .

A document published by the FIM MotoGP Stewards association told Bezzecchi that “following a crash you pushed and struck circuit Marshals who were trying to recover your machine”.

“That is an infringement of Article 3.3.2.2, an action ‘prejudicial to the interests of the sport’,” they added.

Aprilia appealed the stewards’ decision on Saturday, but appeal stewards upheld the verdict, and Aprilia said it would not protest any further.

It is another blow to Bezzecchi’s hopes of a maiden MotoGP title after he failed to finish the Hungarian GP two weeks ago, when his teammate Jorge Martin took him out in turn one.

Adding to Aprilia’s woes at Brno, Martin will have to serve two long-lap penalties for causing that crash.

Bezzecchi apologised “to everyone, Aprilia Racing and my fans” in a statement.

“I would like to apologise to the entire MotoGP community for my behaviour toward the trackside marshall,” he said.

“I’m also sorry because I know how much effort and sacrifice marshalls make to ensure our safety. This behaviour shouldn’t happen and there is no justification for it.”

On Sunday MotoGP posted a video of Bezzecchi apologising to the steward and embracing him.

Bezzecchi leads the MotoGP rankings with 180 points, ahead of Martin with 165 and Fabio Di Giannantonio of Ducati with 146.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – England v New Zealand 2026, England cricket team, Brendon McCullum, Cricket, New Zealand cricket team, Sport
Title – England are a mess in this Test: isn’t it about time the Brendon McCullum era ended? | England v New Zealand 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andybull
Link – England are a mess in this Test: isn’t it about time the Brendon McCullum era ended? | England v New Zealand 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T18:33:09.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/20/england-mess-second-test-new-zealand-brendon-mccullum-era-cricket

At the end of the fourth day’s play here the abiding question wasn’t whether England could complete a record-breaking fourth innings chase or even if they could bat the match out to secure the draw. It was why everyone is still watching an England team coached by Brendon McCullum six months after he ought to have moved on from the job.

The way we tell it in this country, McCullum’s backstory as England coach begins on 2 January 2013 when, in his first match as New Zealand’s Test captain, the team were bowled out for 45 by South Africa at Cape Town. Legend has it this was the watershed Test. In a management meeting that evening, McCullum laid out his ideas about the way the game should be played. The hard-charging, happy-go-lucky approach that has characterised England’s cricket in the past four years was born right here, when, New Zealand’s coach, Mike Hesson, said, McCullum was first empowered “to do the job the way he wanted it done”.

There is a chapter missing in this version. Everyone involved in New Zealand cricket knows it by rote, but it’s not often discussed in England. It’s all about what happened in the months running up to that match, when McCullum’s predecessor as captain, Ross Taylor, was forced out of his job by Hesson, who was an old teammate of McCullum’s.

The fallout was so incendiary that last time anyone asked McCullum and Taylor were still at odds about how it went down. Both wrote about it in their memoirs. McCullum describes himself as being caught in the middle, Taylor says he felt McCullum knew what was going on all along.

The way Taylor tells it, New Zealand’s dressing room was a place of player cliques, power dynamics and press briefings, where there were two sides to every story, the one they said to your face and the one you overheard when your back was turned.

Taylor writes that when McCullum suggested that they should split the captaincy between the two of them “it was hard to know where he was coming from: maybe there was an element of him not wanting the Test captaincy and/or being able to say to the media that he’d tried to convince me to do it – by that stage they knew they had a PR problem’’.

In between all the he-said, she-said what is absolutely true is that McCullum threatened to sue for defamation when he was falsely accused of orchestrating Taylor’s removal. The man who made the accusation, the former Test player John Parker, apologised and retracted his remarks.

Later, when a Sunday paper obtained a series of emails between McCullum and the mental skills coach, Kerry Schwalger, from this era, McCullum’s legal team secured an injunction to prevent their publication. Martin Crowe was so offended by the way Taylor was treated that he said he had burned his New Zealand team blazer.

All of which may, or may not, be a timely reminder that McCullum’s dressing rooms have not always been the sort of free-and-easy open-to-all environments they seem to be when the team are winning. That, expert as he is handling his players, he is also a pretty ruthless dressing-room politician, a man who knows how to instruct a media team and even deploy his lawyers during a crisis.

All of which is a long way from what’s been going on at the Oval this week, 275 miles to be exact. This was a team full of rookies, with no spinner, two debutant wicketkeepers and an attack spearheaded by a man who had not bowled anything more than a four-over spell in six months, led by a man who does not want to be captain, while their real captain is in Chester-le-Street , working out his anger on the Northamptonshire bowling attack. They have caught poorly and batted rashly. Every one of these problems can be tracked back to the team’s leadership, which, this week at least, does not include Ben Stokes.

The talk is that Stokes will be back for the third Test at Trent Bridge next week. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to explain what has gone on between England’s leadership team, why McCullum refused to give Stokes his backing as captain and what he meant by repeatedly insisting that he was worried about Stokes’s mental wellbeing when, according to all reports out of Durham, there isn’t anything wrong with him.

“He has been absolutely fine,” said Durham’s chief executive, Tim Bostock, on Thursday, “just normal Ben”. Bostock said he was “bemused” by the comments.

McCullum’s England tried and McCullum’s England failed. They provided a lot of entertainment along the way, but six months on the charm of watching them do it all over again is starting to wear a little thin, even when you’ve drunk as much as the Saturday crowd at the Oval.

Keyword – Television & radio
Trefwoorden – House of the Dragon, Television & radio, Culture, Game of Thrones
Title – ‘My mum says I’m not working class any more!’: Olivia Cooke on power, privilege, and dividing audiences in House of Dragon | House of the Dragon | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rebeccanicholson
Link – ‘My mum says I’m not working class any more!’: Olivia Cooke on power, privilege, and dividing audiences in House of Dragon | House of the Dragon | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T09:00:27.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jun/21/olivia-cooke-interview-house-dragon-game-thrones-girlfriend

H ouse of the Dragon is a massive television series. Over two seasons, the prequel to Game of Thrones has seduced viewers with its plotting, backstabbing, candlelit meetings about war, and massive sheep-munching dragons. Olivia Cooke’s dad, however, did not get the memo.

We’re in London, on a stormy summer afternoon, and Cooke is sipping a bottle of neon juice (“Tell me if my teeth go purple”). Her dad texted her yesterday. She gets her phone and pulls up a photo of a television screen, with the first season of House of the Dragon loaded up and ready to go. “He said: ‘Raining outside, so starting a binge-watch.’” She laughs. “I was like, great, Dad, worked on it for six years, hope you like, kiss kiss.” What was his review? “Yes, I like it. Quite violent.” He was planning to watch another episode after he’d picked up Cooke’s nephew from school.

Cooke may be just 32, but to be fair to her dad, there is a lot of her work to catch up on. The actor grew up in Oldham. When she was 18, she moved to Vancouver to join the cast of another prequel, the Psycho spin-off Bates Motel . After that, she lived in New York for a few busy but unhappy years, before moving back to London, just before the pandemic (shooting the film Pixie in Belfast, she realised: “Oh my God, I don’t have to beat down my sense of humour any more”). She has made movies, starring in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One and with Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal . She was a brilliant Becky Sharp in ITV’s adaptation of Vanity Fair and appeared briefly as the MI5 agent Sid in spy thriller Slow Horses. But House of the Dragon, in which she plays the scheming and morally murky Alicent Hightower, has been a gamechanger.

The series is based on the George RR Martin book Fire & Blood, and while it is never easy to be succinct about the world of Westeros, the rough gist of it is this: Alicent was childhood best friends with Rhaenyra Targaryen (played as an adult by Emma D’Arcy), and betrays her by marrying Rhaenyra’s father, King Viserys, to become queen. She then bore lots of ethically dubious blond heirs to the Iron Throne (season one), went to war with Rhaenyra for the crown after Viserys’s death (season two), and, in the finale, waved the white flag and made a deal to give up her son to Rhaenyra, in order to support Rhaenyra’s claim to be the true queen.

In short, you could say that as season three approaches, Alicent has a lot on her plate. One reviewer called her “the saddest woman in Westeros”, but Cooke is not so sure that the description fits. “I don’t think she really has time to reflect on how she is feeling inside,” she says.

Alicent has been a divisive figure among fans of the show, particularly in the earlier days, when the character worked against Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne. But Cooke has noticed that recently Alicent has been a focal point for some queer women and non-binary people. “Alicent is a product of the patriarchy,” she says. In season one, her marriage to the king was engineered by her father, though recent episodes have seen “an unravelling of everything that she’s learned, and she’s becoming liberated, in a sense. I don’t want to say that she is living the queer experience, because she’s definitely not, but I don’t know if there’s something that is relatable there.”

Other viewers are less supportive. “It can be quite vitriolic at times. I don’t want this to come across as ‘Woe is me’, because I’m very grateful for the job,” Cooke says, carefully, “but to field insults when you’re just walking down the street …”

I assumed that it would be mostly digital, but it’s in the real world, too? “Yeah! They want a picture with you, then afterwards, they’ll say, ‘I fucking hate your character, by the way,’ or, ‘Your character’s a cunt.’” What do you say to that? “I sort of laugh and say: ‘Well, you can delete that picture,’” she shrugs. “I don’t know what you can do. I just try and take it in my stride.”

Cooke got rid of her own Instagram six months ago. In person, she is funny and friendly, and when I ask her what made her ditch it for good, her reason is charmingly specific. “I was sick of seeing 21-year-old looksmaxxers being like: ‘If you follow a program, this is what you can do,’ and it’s a side-by-side picture of him at 14, going through puberty, and him now, saying: ‘Look at the transformation.’” Her algorithm had picked up on her morbid fascination with physical extremes. “It’s a lot. It’s very navel-gazy, and it distorts your mental image of your body and your self. And I think that has trickled into our industry, as well.” It was too much for her brain to handle, so she deleted her account and hasn’t looked back.

For a short period of time, she was a meme herself. “Was I?” she says, looking suddenly panicked. Not recently, don’t worry, I say, but the negroni … “Oh yes,” she replies, visibly relieved. When Cooke and D’Arcy were first promoting House of the Dragon, a clip of the pair discussing their favourite drinks went viral. D’Arcy had said their drink of choice was a negroni sbagliato (“with prosecco in it”). “Ooh, stunnin’ ,” Cooke replied.

“I just think it was interesting that in our attention-deficit economy, that after a very wide-ranging career, that was the thing I was most notable for,” she says today. “But like everything, it lasted for about 15 minutes.” Has she had to remove that word from her vocabulary? “What, sbagliato? That was maybe the second time I’d ever said it.”

No, I mean “stunning”.

“Oh! Maybe. Just initially. Out of annoyance.” She has often said that she can be contrary. “And I can get a bit of an attitude when it comes to these things, but it was all good-natured. It was just very bizarre.”

On the subject of unexpected hits, at the end of last summer Cooke starred in the very fun, very pulpy thriller The Girlfriend , which turned out to be another smash. In it, her character, the ambitious estate agent Cherry Laine, went head to head with her boyfriend Daniel’s mother, the rich art dealer Laura, played by Robin Wright , who also directed the series (Laura thinks Cherry’s a social climber; Cherry thinks Laura’s a snob). It was moreish and addictive, but its success took Cooke by surprise, simply because there is so much TV coming out on streaming every week. “I didn’t expect it to capture people’s attention like that.” But she can see why it did. “Girlfriend and mother-in-law relationships, that’s quite potent. There’s a lot of nuance and passive aggression to dig into and exacerbate and exaggerate.”

As with Alicent, audiences were divided about whether they supported Cherry or Laura. Cooke’s mum was on Cherry’s side – “I was like, yeah, because you can’t differentiate between me and any character I play” – though, given some of its more explicit scenes, her dad described it as “being a bit like a radio play for him”. Though considering that – spoiler alert – Laura had pretended her own son had died in order to get him away from Cherry, a shocking number of people were on the mum’s side. “Boy mums,” says Cooke conspiratorially. “A lot of boy mums were on Laura’s side.”

As well as all the flashy melodrama, it had a point to make about snobbery and the British class system. Daniel was from a rich family, and Cherry from a poor one. No matter how much she tried to fit in to his world, it was never quite good enough. “To try to get into those networks, it’s like trying to cut through steel with a twig,” says Cooke, poetically. “It’s impossible to penetrate, and Cherry had to learn the hard way. But it’s the same now. It’s really hard to navigate the upper echelons of society. I mean, not that I would want to,” she laughs. “But it’s a whole culture to itself.”

Cooke has spoken before about the challenges of being an actor from a working-class background, with a northern accent, and how the entertainment industry is built on the kind of networks and pre-existing connections that exist in those upper echelons of society. She jokes that her mum now scoffs whenever she refers to herself as working class. “She’s like, you’re not working class any more,” she laughs. “I think my sensibility is still working class. I just have become, against all odds, very successful in my field.”

When she was eight, Cooke started going to the Oldham Theatre Workshop, a youth theatre group that also nurtured the likes of Anna Friel, Suranne Jones and Joseph Gilgun. At the time, it was at the end of her street. “My mum was just like, ballet’s not worked out, let’s chuck her in there.” What went wrong with ballet? “My mum said I answered the teacher back too many times.” (When casting The Girlfriend, Wright said she chose Cooke because she had “moxie”.) Had she expressed any interest in performing before? “I was the eldest daughter of two, and a child of divorce,” she says, drily. “So there was a lot of ‘Look at me, love me’.”

She feels strongly that there should be more drama workshops available to young people, particularly from working-class areas. “There is a huge amount of talent to be found in these places, but you need to fund them, and it can’t just be the Harrow and Eton lot, because you’re only going to get one side of the story, and it’s not going to be truthful.” Without groups such as the Oldham Theatre Workshop, TV, film and theatre all starts to look the same. “It just becomes completely homogenised, and it’s fucking boring.” A pause, then she laughs: “She says, getting riled up.”

But talking about it is important, she continues. “I thought with a Labour government, these things would be prioritised, but it feels like it’s not.” There is less and less funding for the arts, and she is clear about what is being lost. “Even if you don’t want to be an actor, it’s important to have a place to go and express yourself, and not be locked in your room on your phone. You’re able to develop social skills. Children today are so isolated. And with the rise of the manosphere, the antidote to that is play, and showing boys that they can be tender and emotional, and that it’s beautiful and cool and mind-expanding to be on stage.”

Cooke has to head off to a meeting, about a top-secret script. She has three films coming out in the near future. There are two horrors: Visitation, in which she plays a nun, and Brides, which is more of a gothic romance. There is a film about the crime novelist Patricia Highsmith – originally called Switzerland, though it may now have a new name – which will be directed by Anton Corbijn. He made Cooke’s favourite film, the Joy Division biopic Control, so she was happy to get the chance to grill him about that.

Meanwhile, House of the Dragon is due to end with a fourth and final season. As ever, in Westeros, it’s impossible to say who will make it out alive. “In the book, I survive until the end of the story,” she says, meaning that Alicent might well be in with a chance. “So good behaviour-willing, I won’t get the chop.” Her dad, then, has got even more catching up to do.

Season three of House of the Dragon starts on HBO Max, Sky Atlantic & Now on 22 June.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Netherlands, Sweden, Football, Sport, World Cup
Title – Brobbey and Gakpo at the double as five-star Netherlands crush sorry Sweden | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nick-ames
Link – Brobbey and Gakpo at the double as five-star Netherlands crush sorry Sweden | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T19:03:13.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/20/netherlands-sweden-world-cup-group-f-match-report

It turns out Sweden do not have a monopoly on old-fashioned centre-forward play. They were schooled in it here by Brian Brobbey, who was brought in by Ronald Koeman to give the Netherlands’ attack a focal point and swiftly made his under-pressure manager resemble a genius. Brobbey scored twice in the opening 17 minutes to pave the way for a crushing win, proving impossible to handle with a cocktail of strength, touch and finishing.

Koeman had criticised his own decisions after Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Japan , lamenting substitutions that failed to pay off. This time he could, if the mood took him, pat himself firmly on the back. There was yet more to enjoy in the contribution of Crysencio Summerville, who sparkled after his half-time introduction. Summerville finished unerringly late on to complete a rout that leaves Sweden dizzy from finishing on different ends of the same scoreline.

Viktor Gyökeres and Alexander Isak had made hay in the 5-1 win over Tunisia and both tested Bart Verbruggen this time, finding the keeper equal to regular examination. Sweden and their feted strikers woke up after the first-half hydration break, Graham Potter’s switch to a back four loosening the straitjacket, but much of the damage had already been done. The squad are due a belated celebration of midsummer on Sunday, marking a time of year when much of their country sees near-constant daylight, but their World Cup may yet plunge into darkness if they do not master Japan’s threat in Thursday’s decisive final game.

“The scoreline was a bit harsh on us but the Netherlands played well and deserved to win,” Potter said. There was little to quibble with in that; nor was there much complaint when Potter reeled off a list of the victors’ star names and remarked that Sweden were always going to have it tough. His team were torn apart down the flanks, looking far too easy to play through and being punished repeatedly by sheer quality.

Brobbey, who showed an appetite to grapple with his marker, Isak Hien, from the off, quickly emphasised the gulf in class. He was simply too strong for the centre-back when receiving a chest-high pass in the fifth minute, cleverly bringing Tijjani Reijnders into play and allowing a switch left to Cody Gakpo. While Gakpo’s angled centre was perfect, Brobbey deserves credit for not standing to admire his own work. He had bust a gut to meet the delivery, arriving first to convert from close in.

The floodgates were open. “If you look at the number of goals we scored it will create fear among other teams, the quality was great,” said Koeman, who was more modest about his selection of Brobbey for this assignment. Soon Brobbey scored again, touching in after the latest of several marvellous, snaking Denzel Dumfries crosses from the right. He had scored only one international goal before being unleashed on Sweden’s back line.

“You get a smack in the face and then you have to change your plan,” Potter said. Both mid-half pauses were booed loudly by the crowd, a mostly orange mass who evidently know when they are being taken for mugs, but Sweden shrugged off most of their early timidity after the first. By the interval Gyökeres, three times, and Yasin Ayari had forced Verbruggen into smart saves. Ayari blasted narrowly over and a Gustaf Lagerbielke header was ruled narrowly offside, but the transformation was soon rendered irrelevant.

When given oxygen the Netherlands were simply too good, scoring straight after the restart when Summerville twisted Sweden inside out and allowed Dumfries to cross again. Gakpo could not miss from a couple of yards and, enjoying a wildly productive afternoon of his own, proceeded to score another. This time he took a pass from Summerville, who had not been deemed fit to start, and cracked low to Kristoffer Nordfeldt’s right from 20 yards.

“Maybe it was an experience we needed to go through,” Potter said. “A big game, a big occasion, a young developing team.” Isak, whose needless squandering of possession had given the Netherlands their platform to spring upfield for the fourth, played the substitute Anthony Elanga through for an emphatic finish before the hour and for a brief spell Sweden threatened to make matters interesting. Balls fizzed across the box from both flanks but with none of the killer touch their opponents had found.

Instead Summerville, with a pleasingly stroked finish from a similar position to Gakpo’s second, showed how it is done. Neither of these sides look especially reliable but an early statement of this nature should do wonders for the Netherlands’ morale. “We have very good forwards and we can take advantage of that, the team has improved quite a bit,” Koeman said.

Potter needs his own attackers to fire once more against Japan, while keeping the door bolted, in a match that in effect resembles a knockout tie. Surely, in this most forgiving of formats, Sweden will not crash out after making such an exhilarating start. “Sometimes you have to grow to learn these things,” he said of the numerous lessons handed down. They will need to absorb them quickly.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Tennis, Sport, Emma Raducanu
Title – ‘I hope it works’: Tim Henman on Raducanu’s coach and vice-captain duties at Laver Cup | Tennis | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/donaldmcrae
Link – ‘I hope it works’: Tim Henman on Raducanu’s coach and vice-captain duties at Laver Cup | Tennis | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T04:00:51.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/20/tim-henman-emma-raducanu-laver-cup-interview

“T ennis is in a good place, but I think it could be better,” says Tim Henman when asked about the state of the sport that has consumed most of his life. He will soon outline ways tennis could be improved but, first, it helps to remember that the 51-year-old played in six grand slam semi-finals, including four at Wimbledon, won an Olympic silver medal and became No 4 in the world despite constant gripes from part-time tennis supporters who wrongly said he lacked the grit of an elite player.

Yet grit filters through Henman’s memories and explains why he loves tennis while always striving to reach a better place. We meet at the Queen’s Club and the elegance of the venue provides a stark contrast to the series of cheap B&Bs where Henman lived, down the road in Earl’s Court, for two years at the outset of his career. Money was tight then and sometimes four young players could share a single room.

“I somehow convinced my parents that I should leave school at 16 to play full-time tennis,” he says. “I was still very small so my results weren’t particularly good. We were based in a far corner at Queen’s with the two indoor courts. It was such a basic facility, but it was brilliant.”

Henman grins when I ask him about B&B life. “Amazing,” he says. “So good. Funnily enough I bumped into Andrew Richardson just before I walked in to see you.”

Emma Raducanu’s coach helped her reach the final at the Queen’s Club last Sunday. Richardson also guided the 18-year-old Raducanu to her astonishing grand slam victory as a qualifier at the US Open in September 2021. That same month she decided to fire him as her coach before rehiring him this summer.

Henman nods when I ask if he shared a room with Richardson in Earl’s Court? “Absolutely. We first met when we were 11 and played against each other. Andrew was best man at my wedding.”

Henman was close to Raducanu during her unforgettable US Open run. Coaching was not allowed from the players’ box then and so Henman encouraged and advised her at courtside, where he was working as a television pundit. When she clinched the title the first person she turned to was Henman, who pointed back at her in delight. So he offers a unique perspective on her relationship with Richardson.

What did he think when, two weeks after she won what is, to date, her solitary adult title, Raducanu removed Richardson as she said he was not experienced enough? “I was surprised she chose not to work with him. She’s worked with a lot of coaches since then and now I really hope that her decision to get back with Andrew works for both their sakes.

“He’s one of my best friends and I’ve also been around Emma. So it would be good if results improve.”

Raducanu and Richardson have made headway and in the Queen’s Club final she lost to Donna Vekic . The winner acknowledged Raducanu’s resurgence after a difficult year, but Vekic reserved most praise for David Felgate – whom she restored to her own team a few weeks ago. Vekic said the victory at Queen’s, where she scraped into the main draw as a lucky loser, was shaped by Felgate’s expertise.

Felgate was one of three coaches Henman used during his career. “Emma’s had eight or nine coaches,” Henman says, “but it’s her prerogative. I looked for consistency, continuity and building the relationship – and that’s why I had three coaches in 16 years.”

Raducanu won the grand slam title that eluded Henman, but she has a long way to go before she matches the depth of his overall achievements. The way he had to fight for his spot on tour forged a resilience and steeliness in him. Does he believe Raducanu’s shock US Open victory damaged her development?

“It was so unexpected because no one had ever qualified and made the final of a slam, let alone qualified and won it. So she didn’t really have a foundation to build from. She’d just done her A-levels and played some grass-court tournaments and then her ranking went up to No 20 in the world.

“All of a sudden she was playing top-level events and she wasn’t ready, physically and mentally. You can’t drop down to build match practice and resilience but would you rather it had not happened? Absolutely not. It’s one of the most incredible achievements in sport.”

Henman is cautious when asked whether she can win another slam. “It would be very hard. Not many people win slams so you could say, if you’ve done it once, you can do it again. But it’s all about the process. She’s got to become physically more resilient to build up her schedule, her match count, her weight of shot, her speed of movement and durability.”

Is Richardson the right coach to unearth that consistency and durability? “Of course. He was a good player and he understands the game well. He’s got a good history with Emma as they’ve known each other since she was in her early teens.”

Even more than Raducanu, Jack Draper has struggled physically and the most talented British men’s tennis player on tour has missed most of the last year through injury. Does Henman expect that Draper, who reached No 4 in the world 15 months ago, will play at Wimbledon?

“I don’t know. He’s pulled out of Queen’s [this week] but this time last year he was in that conversation as to who might challenge Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. He’s had such a rotten time because he was playing great tennis.

“It’s very challenging whether it’s this bone bruising or his knee. He’s just got to try and stay patient because, if you’re not healthy, you can’t compete.”

Henman expresses his misgivings in regard to the brutal calendar that has resulted in the injury of so many leading players. Alcaraz has been forced to miss the French Open and Wimbledon. And, after racking up a 30-match winning streak, Sinner’s body betrayed him during the first week in Paris. Leading Juan Manuel Cerúndolo 6-3, 6-2, 5-1, he lost 18 of the next 20 games to crash out in the second round. Sinner looked as if he had hit a wall after winning successive Masters tournaments in Madrid and Rome.

“The schedule needs looking at because less is more and I would definitely streamline it,” Henman says. “The Masters 1000 events should be eight or nine days and then you need some periods where there is no tennis at the very highest level. It’s good for the players and fans and builds expectation for the next event.

“I’m not a fan of the 12-day Masters 1000 events. Physically and psychologically that is tiring and, if anything, we should be trying to shorten the season.”

Money drives modern sport and so is it feasible that some tournaments could be curtailed or even cut? “It’s difficult, but that’s where the sport needs to come together. When you look at the governance of tennis there are seven different bodies – the ATP, WTA, ITF and the four grand slams. And right now we have this PTPA lawsuit .” The Professional Tennis Players Association triggered legal action against those seven organisations while accusing them of collaborating to reduce prize money, impose a restrictive ranking system and repress players’ promotional opportunities. “We really need to communicate, and that has made it very difficult with the lawyers.”

Henman has recently been at the heart of tense negotiations between the leading players and the grand slam tournaments over prize money. He is a board member at Wimbledon, but his achievements in the game mean Henman is respected by the players and last week there was a breakthrough. Wimbledon announced a 20% increase in prize money, which the players accepted, but has the situation been fully resolved?

“The communication needs to be better and conversations are not going to stop. It’s a huge strength of our sport that we have combined [men’s and women’s] events and look at how the grand slams have led the way in equal prize money and the opportunity that they’ve given to lower-ranked players. In the women’s game, the Wimbledon prize money for qualifying this year will be more than some of the [WTA] Masters 1000 events.”

Henman is particularly animated when confirming his reappointment as the vice-captain of Team Europe in the Laver Cup against Team World at the O 2 in London in September. He believes the competition, which began in 2017, has the potential to become as powerful in tennis as the Ryder Cup is in golf.

“I absolutely love it,” Henman says. “Until I first experienced the Laver Cup in person I’d thought it was an exhibition event. But when I was at the 2022 Laver Cup, when Roger Federer played his final match before retirement at the O 2 , I was blown away by the intensity and passion of both teams.

“The players are individuals and rivals and here they are coming together for the greater good of Europe or the rest of the world. The way the event was delivered was incredible and so when I was asked last year if I’d like to be vice-captain I was blindsided. But I felt it was an absolute privilege and I could not have enjoyed it more in San Francisco – apart from the fact that we didn’t win .”

Team Europe has won five of the eight Laver Cups and Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev, the new French Open champion, have agreed to play at the O 2 . “We were bitterly disappointed when we lost last time but it was then that Alcaraz signed up. He said: ‘I’m coming back.’ If the players love the event they have that intensity to win.”

Will Alcaraz be fit again by September? “I have no idea. It’s obviously a serious injury, because he pulled out of Madrid, Rome, Paris, Queen’s and Wimbledon. So, fingers crossed.”

Negotiations to entice Sinner to make his Laver Cup debut are under way and Henman says: “We have a WhatsApp group so we’re always in dialogue, looking at how the team could shape up.”

It seems a long time since, at the end of 1992, Henman was 18 and finally left B&B life in Earl’s Court. “I got my first ranking points in Morocco and central Africa. I had seven points and my ranking was 780 at the end of the year. That was such a defining moment, because I was on the ladder. I wanted to be 700. I wanted to be 500. I wanted to be 300.”

Henman smiles when I ask if he believed then that, one day, he would become the fourth‑best player in the world with an enduring influence in tennis in the decades ahead?

“No chance. If you’d said to me then: ‘Sign this document and you can be top 100 for the next 10 years, and play the grand slams,’ I would have bitten both arms off. It’s what I always wanted to do.”

The Laver Cup is at the O 2 from 25-27 September. Visit lavercup.com .

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Scottish independence, Brexit, Scotland, UK news, European Union, Europe, Foreign policy, Politics, Scottish politics, World news, Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia Dugdale, Boris Johnson, Ruth Davidson, Theresa May
Title – ‘This changes everything’: how Brexit altered Scotland’s political landscape | Scottish independence | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/severincarrell
Link – ‘This changes everything’: how Brexit altered Scotland’s political landscape | Scottish independence | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T11:00:30.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/this-changes-everything-how-brexit-altered-scotland-political-landscape

T he decision to quit the EU bolstered support for Scottish independence , which a decade after the Brexit referendum is at near record levels, according to Scottish Labour’s former leader Kezia Dugdale.

Dugdale said the Brexit vote “creates a frame around fairness” for many in Scotland because, unlike England, Scottish voters comprehensively backed remain in 2016, by 62% to 38%, yet found their country taken out of Europe.

She also believed the UK government’s embrace of a “hard Brexit” swayed many Scots who had been undecided about Scottish independence when a referendum was held on the issue in 2014.

Support for independence currently stands at about 50%, reaching 55% in some polls.

Dugdale recalled feeling “utterly devastated” when the leave result was confirmed early on 24 June 2016. That morning, she spoke privately to the then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon , telling her: “This changes everything.”

She said many Scots felt they “faced an immediate binary choice of an independent Scotland in Europe or a Boris Johnson-led Brexit Britain”, and that sense of betrayal changed the landscape of Scottish politics .

“I think it sustained support for independence, which otherwise would have fallen back,” she said.

Ruth Davidson, who was the Scottish Conservative leader in 2016 and championed the remain campaign, was shocked by the leave result.

She recalled speaking that day to Sturgeon, who sought to persuade her to “move forward together” alongside Dugdale in support of a second independence vote. “I can remember thinking ‘no, no, no’,” Davidson said. “The remain vote shouldn’t be coopted for something it wasn’t for.”

In her memoir Frankly, Sturgeon said:“I felt distraught and enraged by the prospect of Brexit and what it said about Scotland’s powerlessness within the UK. I had a strong sense of ‘If not now, when?’”

There was speculation that in the wake of Brexit, support for Scottish independence could surpass 60%, but the tidal wave many expected did not transpire.

Instead, over the past decade, the issue’s salience faded as the political crises that followed Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the Ukraine war, and Donald Trump’s chaotic presidencies translated into deep insecurity about the economy and public services.

Davidson, a staunch unionist, said she retained her “animosity” towards Johnson, who she believes neglected to show genuine leadership and failed to articulate a coherent vision for a unified post-Brexit Britain. But the “Boris effect” on support for independence was much less significant than she had feared.

“There was a hierarchy of concern” for voters, she said. “Whether we were for independence or for staying in the UK was a more material concern than the UK’s relationship with the EU.”

The electoral realities of that tension could be seen as early as 2017.

Sturgeon’s attempts to leverage remainer anger into an irresistible case for a second referendum floundered. Theresa May’s Conservative government resisted her demands. Support for independence fell during 2017 to below 40%.

In the 2017 general election, the SNP lost 21 Westminster seats and its vote share fell 13 points as voters punished Sturgeon for demanding a second independence vote. The pro-UK parties, which had previously held only a seat each, enjoyed a renaissance.

Davidson’s Tories won 13 seats; Dugdale’s Labour won seven, and the Lib Dems four. In the five UK and Holyrood elections since, the SNP has never won 50% of the vote, weakening its claims to a mandate for a second independence referendum.

Yet during 2019, with Johnson succeeding May as prime minister and pressing forward with a hard Brexit, followed by his blundering failures during the Covid crisis in 2020, independence polling changed.

As Sturgeon became a commanding presence in contrast to Johnson’s chaotic leadership, support for Scotland leaving the UK surged, reaching 59% by October 2020.

Economic decline and fears about the NHS now dominate the Scottish political agenda. Dugdale traces much of that to Brexit, and its impact on the UK’s economy.

Based on recent estimates from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Scottish government’s Europe minister, Stephen Gethins, told Holyrood on 18 June that Brexit led to £3.3bn in lost revenue for Scotland last year and added £250 to food bills.

Prof Mairi Spowage, the director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, a leading Scottish economics thinktank, argued that while it was clear Brexit had hit economic output, EU exports and public finances, its precise impacts had been obscured by other crises and policy failures.

She said the UK’s economic decline could be partly traced to longer-term underinvestment by business and government since the 2008 banking crisis. Since then, Covid, Ukraine, the Liz Truss government, US trade policy and wars in the Middle East have also affected the economy.

Migration to the UK, too, has been complex: the “Boris wave” of post-Brexit migration has offset a fall in EU workers – partly due to increasing prosperity for EU member states, once a source of migrant labour.

Despite the efforts by John Swinney, the first minister and SNP leader, to make Scottish independence and rejoining the EU central to the recent Holyrood elections, that gambit failed to deliver the overall majority he craved.

The SNP achieved 38% of the vote, its lowest since 2007, and won most seats only because the opposition was divided. The anti-EU party Reform UK drove that opposition split, winning 17 seats and is now jointly Holyrood’s second largest party; some of its voters were EU sceptics who once backed the SNP.

Dugdale, now an associate director of the Centre for Public Policy at Glasgow University, is no longer a member of the Labour party and voted SNP in the last European parliament election in 2019 in protest over Brexit.

Many voters are now driven by anger and disillusionment, partly because of a belief that Brexit failed to deliver on its supporters’ promises. “We’ve had more than 15 years of austerity and 15 years of falling trust in political institutions,” Dugdale said. “If we sustain these things long enough, people no longer trust the system to make their lives better.”

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Frank Bowling, Painting, Fitzwilliam Museum, Art, Art and design, Black British culture, Culture, Life and style
Title – Frank Bowling: ‘Guiltiest pleasure? Sixteen-year-old whisky. My doctor says I shouldn’t’ | Frank Bowling | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rosannagreenstreet
Link – Frank Bowling: ‘Guiltiest pleasure? Sixteen-year-old whisky. My doctor says I shouldn’t’ | Frank Bowling | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T09:00:05.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/20/frank-bowling-artist-interview-seeking-sublime-exhibition

B orn in British Guiana (now Guyana), Frank Bowling, 92, moved to the UK aged 19 and did national service in the RAF. In 1962, he graduated from the Royal College of Art with the silver medal for painting. He moved to New York in 1966, where he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, and exhibited his “map paintings” at the Whitney Museum in 1971. In 2005, he became the first black artist to be elected a Royal Academician, and Tate Britain staged a retrospective in 2019. His exhibition, Seeking the Sublime , is at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until January 2027. He lives in London with his wife.

When were you happiest? Recently, as people began to understand what I am trying to do in my painting.

What is your greatest fear? Being poor.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? The boozing. I started on rum as a child.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Trying to exercise authority over one.

What was your most embarrassing moment? In the 1950s I went to the Chelsea Arts Club’s New Year’s Eve ball at the Royal Albert Hall dressed as a Christmas pudding, with swimming trunks under my costume and holly in my hair.

Describe yourself in three words Needing order always.

What do you most dislike about your appearance? I haven’t kept up with fashion. I think I dress well – corduroy trousers, colourful shirts and a hat – but it’s all traditional stuff. I envy my grandson’s bright yellow suit and colourful sneakers.

Would you choose fame or anonymity? Fame. It is hard to be clothes-conscious and anonymous.

What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? A fellow artist called me a flaneur!

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose? Billy Eckstine singing Tenderly.

What did you want to be when you were growing up? A detective. Or a writer. Or a poet.

What is your guiltiest pleasure? Lagavulin 16-year-old whisky. My doctor says I shouldn’t.

What do you owe your parents? My mother paid my first term’s fees at art school. I inherited her ambition.

What did you dream about last night? Making a bigger picture. I see my paintings as competitive, so when Into the Blue [13 metres wide] was installed in a church, I immediately saw how I could make it bigger: by adding wings.

Which words do you most overuse? The edge! I’m very concerned about the edges of my work and sometimes I can’t get my assistants to understand.

What is the worst job you’ve done? Picking up RAF pilots’ parachute packs and gear they dropped off in a pile.

When did you last cry, and why? In 2001, when my eldest son died.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being able to paint the way I do.

What has been your closest brush with the law? My father. He was a policeman who believed in corporal punishment.

What keeps you awake at night? My work. What shape will it take?

How would you like to be remembered? As a nice old man.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you? Keep working, improving your step.

What happens when we die? I hope I’ll find my mother and father in heaven. Only my father would probably say, “You can’t come and live here, boy!”