Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Plants, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Gardens, Isaac Newton, Science, UK news, Environment
Title – Cambridge experts recreate 336-year-old garden to commemorate ‘father of natural history’ | Plants | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/donna-ferguson
Link – Cambridge experts recreate 336-year-old garden to commemorate ‘father of natural history’ | Plants | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T08:00:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/cambridge-experts-recreate-336-year-old-garden-to-commemorate-father-of-natural-history

He coined the terms petal and pollen, helped to lay the foundations of modern biology and is widely regarded as the greatest English naturalist of the 17th century.

But it was while he was a young college tutor at Cambridge in the 1650s that the botanist John Ray – also known as “the father of natural history” – created his first known garden and began to systematically study plants for the first time.

Now, gardeners at Trinity College, Cambridge have dug up their front lawn and attempted to reimagine the historic garden Ray planted in the college, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his birth next year.

Using clues from a 1690 engraving, they have created the garden in the exact location Ray is thought to have used, in front of a descendant of an apple tree that famously inspired another trailblazing scientist and Trinity alumnus: Isaac Newton .

Ray recorded many of the plants he planted in his garden when he became the first botanist to rigorously document the flora of an English county in his landmark text, Catalogue of Plants Growing Around Cambridge, published in Latin in 1660.

“He makes references to plants, saying ‘I grew this in our little Cambridge garden’ so I had to work out what that phrase was in Latin to find out what he grew,” said the head gardener, Karen Wells. “He would go around the county collecting plants and bring them back to the garden so that he could study them.”

It is estimated Ray tried to grow about 700 different types of plants in his garden, including fenland lichens and fungi that would only survive in boggy conditions and poisonous plants like American pokeweed and Dutchman’s pipe.

But Wells has instead focused on cultivating the drought-tolerant and pollinator-friendly plants that Ray chose, to encourage biodiversity, create climate resilience – and pre-empt any Agatha-Christie style murder plots.

Her planting list – like Ray’s – includes wood avens (a woodland herb with small yellow flowers), betony (a flowering mint), golden rod (a herbaceous perennial that grows in meadows), pasqueflower (a violet flower found in chalk and limestone grasslands) and white-flowered moth mullein (a biennial wildflower beloved by bees and butterflies).

“As soon as I planted the mullein, a bee started foraging on the flower,” she said. “I think the betony, which has pinky-purple flowers, is also going to be quite eye-catching and attractive to insects.”

Another medieval herb she has planted is a nod to the monarch who founded Trinity college in 1546: “We have put in Good King Henry – Ray wrote about how delicious the stems of it were, cooked in butter.”

As the project neared completion, ready for its official opening on Thursday, Wells was amazed to see the 336-year-old garden depicted in the 1690 engraving take shape before her eyes: “Creating this garden, I feel like I’ve time travelled.”

In 2005, a scientist who was trying to figure out where Newton had conducted his chemical experiments tested the site of the new garden , which is located directly beneath the former student’s rooms in the college. Prof Peter Spargo, of the University of Cape Town, discovered the soil contained higher-than-expected concentrations of copper, arsenic, gold, mercury and other metallic residues, as well as fragments of bricks and mortar, indicating he had finally pinpointed the exact location of Newton’s private laboratory.

Linked as it is to the work of both Ray and Newton, the new garden could be on “the most scientifically important spot of land in the 17th century”, said Prof Richard Serjeantson, who teaches history at Trinity.

Ray, who was the son of a blacksmith, arrived in Cambridge on a scholarship at the age of 16 to study rhetoric, logic and grammar. In a moving preface to his book about Cambridgeshire flora, which revolutionised botany by encouraging other naturalists to go out into the field and systematically document their local plants, he writes about the origins of his interest in the natural world.

“I had been rather unwell, and for the sake of both my mind and my body, I had to take a break from more demanding studies by either riding or walking,” he writes.

Serjeantson says Ray’s passion for local plants is inspiring: “We live in an age where you can get anything from anywhere in the world, but in an age that is also conscious of carbon footprints and invasive species, I think there’s an attractiveness to this garden that reflects the world of Cambridge and local flora.”

Keyword – Art and design
Trefwoorden – Art and design, Installation, JR, Art, Culture, Paris, Europe, Christo
Title – ‘It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable’: French artist JR on transforming Paris’ oldest bridge into a cave | Art and design | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kim-willsher
Link – ‘It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable’: French artist JR on transforming Paris’ oldest bridge into a cave | Art and design | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T14:11:18.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/16/french-artist-jr-on-transforming-pont-neuf-into-a-cave-la-caverne-paris

W ith the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower to one side and Notre Dame to the other, Pont Neuf is not only Paris’s most picturesque bridge but, contrary to what its name suggests, it’s also the city’s oldest.

Yet as of today, Pont Neuf is no longer just a bridge but also an overground cave.

Vast swathes of fabric, woven to look like the stone on which Paris is built, have been inflated over the bridge, creating an art installation called La Caverne . It is a bonkers idea, and a direct tribute to Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude wrapping the Pont Neuf more than 40 years ago .

The monumental installation is the work of the French artist and photographer known as JR, often called the French Banksy , whose previous installations include making the Louvre pyramid disappear, placing large portraits of Israelis and Palestinians working in the same jobs facing each other along the separation wall and Kikito, a giant picture of a toddler peering over the US-Mexico border fence.

La Caverne finally opened on Monday, 10 days late after the fabric was ripped by sudden gusts of wind requiring emergency repairs. It is billed as an immersive experience, “a crossing”, a “move into the unknown” evoking primeval fears of the dark and being trapped underground unable to escape.

The printed fabric forms a rocky passage with pillars and fissures made to resemble the Lutetian limestone quarried from the underground basins of the Paris region and on which the city, is built. The Pont Neuf, Notre Dame and the Louvre Museum were constructed from the same stone.

The subterranean ambience is heightened by sound – and smell. Thomas Bangalter , one half of Daft Punk , has created an undulating wind-tunnel sound effect; the air has the barely perceptible mustiness of damp soil and rock, created by an expert who makes perfumes in her day job.

JR says he hopes the technically challenging installation, 120m long and 18m high, will lead visitors to forget they are crossing a bridge in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities.

All of which might have been possible were it not for the shouts of the (mostly American) groups of tourists whose overexcitement could not be contained by fake rock or “subtle soundscape” or the sudden jolt of material reality at the sight of the shop window immediately opposite the exit selling La Caverne souvenirs.

In an interview with the Guardian before the opening, JR, 43, explained his thinking behind the installation which came out of a meeting with Bulgarian-born Christo’s nephew Vladimir Yavachev, who runs the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation .

“We were talking about the anniversary of the Pont Neuf wrapping and Vladimir suggested I do something. Not a wrap but my own thing,” he said. “And then I started dreaming and sketching and as I sketched, the idea of the cave emerged.”

He said the idea of a cave went back to the earliest origins of art when early humans designed on rock walls.

“You’re walking on the bridge. You know exactly where you are, you’re in the middle of Paris. But once you’ve passed the entrance you are somewhere else entirely, not just for a minute but for the whole time because you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“When we enter the cavern, we won’t see the exit. We’ll have to make a journey through our sources, our origins, to then catch a glimpse of the light. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable in a certain way.”

Our interview takes place on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the original train of Agatha Christie murder mystery fame. A boy from the Paris banlieue, JR used to tag trains and public transport tunnels with his initials before he found a camera left on a train at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Today, he is journeying the other side of the tracks. Two years ago he was invited to design L’Observatoire , a suite in an early 20th-century Orient Express carriage that he redesigned with the help of more than 100 artisans from across Europe. At an eye-watering £60-£80,000 for the 26-hour journey from Venice to Paris, it is now the world’s most expensive train ticket.

JR appears to have had an open cheque from the train owner Belmond, part of the luxury LVMH group, to create the carriage suite complete with brass bathtub, skylight that opens and closes like a camera aperture and a sitting room with fireplace, but he says L’Observatoire is not about wealth. “It’s art in motion … and something that will last.”

La Caverne, an ephemeral installation and a spectacular feat of engineering, will not. Despite opening 10 days late, it will close as planned on 28 June when the fabric cave will be pulled down and the material recycled.

“It’s like a circus that comes, puts on a spectacle and then it’s gone. But anyone who sees it will remember it every time they pass the Pont Neuf.”

La Caverne is at Pont Neuf, Paris, until 28 June

Keyword – Science
Trefwoorden – Science, Climate crisis, Environment, Sea ice
Title – The audacious plan to refreeze the Arctic – podcast | Science | The Guardian
Author – Madeleine Finlay
Link – The audacious plan to refreeze the Arctic – podcast | Science | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T05:11:33.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2026/jun/18/inside-the-audacious-plan-to-refreeze-the-arctic-podcast

‘At first, the idea does sound crazy’: meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Politics, UK news, Andy Burnham, Keir Starmer, Makerfield byelection, Greater Manchester
Title – Polls open in historic byelection in Makerfield that could determine Keir Starmer’s future – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tom-ambrose,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/fran-singh,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/siraj-datoo,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rowena-mason,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matty-edwards,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/severincarrell,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tom-burgis,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heatherstewart,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alexandratopping,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jakub-krupa,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-murray,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pippacrerar,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-elgot
Link – Polls open in historic byelection in Makerfield that could determine Keir Starmer’s future – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T14:21:02.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/jun/18/makerfield-byelection-polls-open-labour-leadership-andy-burnham-keir-starmer-latest-news-updates

Polls open in Makerfield for historic byelection that could determine Keir Starmer’s future

Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.

The people of Makerfield, a constituency sitting just outside of Wigan, have at last begun voting in what could be one of the most consequential byelections in British political history.

Since Labour MP Josh Simons resigned to allow the mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham a clear run at returning to parliament – and the opportunity to become prime minister – residents have been inundated with party campaigners and reporters.

Yesterday Burnham urged people to “vote to change politics” and said he would take the “fight as high as I can possibly take it”.

But, despite the seat being considered one of Labour’s safest (it has been red since its creation in 1983), the governing party face a stiff challenge in the shape of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Although the Reform candidate Robert Kenyon’s campaign has been bogged down with the revelation of historic sexist social media post and, shall we say, less than impressive media performances under scrutiny, pollsters have the contest a close run thing.

It comes as Starmer on Wednesday said he was willing to offer the mayor of Greater Manchester a “big” job in his government, should Burnham win when Thursday’s votes are counted.

But allies of Burnham said he was not interested in the offer, insisting “the benefit Andy has is the wind of change for not having been associated with the government’s failings”.

Burnham and his allies are reported to be hoping for a “coronation” in which Starmer stands aside, rather than a leadership contest, which they believe would be damaging to the Labour party’s brand, according to the Times.

But the prime minister has repeatedly made it clear he has no intention of standing down and says that he will fight any challenge to his leadership.

What is certain is that the next 24 hours will prove to be a pivotal moment for this Labour government and, in particular, the prime minister.

Please be aware that the Guardian, like other news outlets, is not allowed to report details of campaigning or election issues while polls are still open today – they close at 10pm.

But you can follow our blog for all the latest in UK politics, as well as I am sure plenty of photos of dogs at polling stations. Because, let’s face it, that really is the true meaning of any British election.

Polanski cleared by ethics inquiry over council tax payment complaint

Zack Polanski has been cleared by an ethics inquiry looking into complaints that he did not pay council tax while living on a houseboat.

A report by the Greater London authority’s monitoring officer found that the circumstances of the Green party leader’s living arrangements were beyond its scope and he had therefore not breached the code of conduct for London assembly members.

The complaints from Labour and the Conservatives alleged that Polanski had breached the requirements of the ethics code because he had not paid council tax while living on a houseboat in east London from 2022.

Polanski, who previously apologised for the “unintentional mistake”, revealed in his evidence to the monitoring officer that it had still not been established whether any tax was due and that the site of the boat fell on the border of two local authorities. As part of the inquiry, he told the monitoring officer that he had “personal experience of financial hardship and housing insecurity”.

He previously said he had not been living at the marina full-time but at another address as a lodger, before it emerged that he had occupied the boat for a couple of years before moving to a house.

In his witness statement, Polanski he said he had never had any intention to “evade council tax, avoid legal obligations or obtain any improper financial advantage” and it remained unclear whether he had actually failed to pay the proper tax.

“Any failure to appreciate the position arose solely from a misunderstanding of what was required in relation to an unusual and unconventional living arrangement,” he wrote.

A voter speaks to a police officer, as St Bernard dog called Indie waits, at a polling station:

The government’s annual accounts have been discounted by the National Audit Office for the third year in a row due to the amount of unaudited accounts from local councils.

For years, there has been a huge backlog in councils getting their accounts audited, which has meant the true financial health of local authorities has been obscured at a time when some have fallen into financial ruin.

The government has already legislated to tackle the local audit crisis via the English Devolution Bill, which will create a new Local Audit Office this autumn. But it remains unclear how long it will take to clear the backlog.

More councils have provided accounts than in recent years, which means there is less missing data in the 2024/25 Whole Government Accounts. But there were still 280 local authorities whose accounts were unaudited or subject to a disclaimed opinion from their external auditor, meaning we can’t be sure of the accuracy of the data.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO said:

Recent measures to begin to restore normal audit assurance for English local authorities are welcome.

This work must be progressed with vigour to ensure timely and high-quality financial reporting for every local body, supporting their accountability to local people and providing more reliable whole of government accounts.

Rachel Reeves has warned her Labour colleagues not to “deviate” from her fiscal rules as the party braces for a leadership race that could begin within days.

Speaking at the Times CEO Summit in London on Thursday, the chancellor said Labour should stick to its manifesto commitments on economic stability and insisted she plans to carry on in her job, PA reported.

In a message to potential leadership challengers, she said:

We got elected on the promise to return stability to the economy, and anyone who wanted to deviate from that will not be fulfilling the manifesto commitments.

She was speaking as voters headed to polling stations across Makerfield in a contest that could see Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham return to Westminster and challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party.

Voters in two Scottish constituencies – Aberdeen South and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry – are busy today too, after their sitting MPs quit Westminster following their election in May to the Scottish parliament.

Recently-introduced legislation in Scotland bars MPs and councillors from sitting at the same time in Holyrood, so after the Scottish National party MPs Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethins won constituency seats for Holyrood six weeks ago, their Commons seats became vacant.

The battle in Aberdeen South to succeed Flynn, previously the SNP’s Westminster leader, who left a 3,758 majority, is proving the most interesting by far.

The Scottish Conservatives argue they have a good chance of winning, based on recent local performances and past precedent, and are battling hard to defeat the SNP in its heartland by taking a very maximalist line on extracting every barrel of North Sea oil and gas.

A former Tory council co-leader, and current MSP Douglas Lumsden is taking on the equally experienced SNP candidate Richard Thomson, a former Aberdeenshire council leader who lost his previous Westminster seat of Gordon in the 2024 general election.

If the Tories did it pull off, and the bookies think they will fail, it would be a significant coup for the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and deeply embarrassing for John Swinney, the SNP leader and first minister.

It would be read as evidence the Tories’ backing for North Sea oil is popular and that the furore over the £400,000 theft of SNP funds by its former chief executive, Peter Murrell, has damaged the SNP brand.

Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, a seat just to the east of Dundee, is seen as an SNP hold, even though Gethins held it in 2024 with less than 900 votes chiefly because Labour support has collapsed since the general election.

Nigel Farage has been trying to block a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for the billionaire bankrolling his party.

The Reform UK leader has said Christopher Harborne wants nothing in exchange for the millions he has donated to the party and the undeclared £5m personal gift to Farage that the Guardian revealed in April.

But Farage used a private meeting at the Bank to urge the governor to drop plans for a state-run alternative to the digital currency that has made his Thailand-based benefactor one of the richest people in the world.

Farage’s opposition to the proposal for a “Britcoin” is so strong that, after the meeting last September, he told an audience of crypto enthusiasts he would be “prepared to go to prison” to stop it, footage of the event shows.

Harborne’s £25m in donations to Farage’s Reform UK , formerly the Brexit party, account for about two-thirds of its funding. He is one of a handful of tech figures who own Tether, the company that issues the world’s most widely traded cryptocurrency.

Tether’s digital cash, known as stablecoins, is pegged in value to government-issued currencies, allowing users to exchange their money easily between the two. Registered in El Salvador with a small staff, Tether’s reported profits have surpassed those of Netflix and Coca-Cola.

If Harborne’s share of the profits is equal to his 12% stake, that would give him about £1bn a year. Those profits could fall, however, if the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, proceeds with the Britcoin plan, which could cut demand for stablecoins such as Tether’s, according to a submission to the central bank by an industry body that represents the company.

Some live photographs of Andy Burnham on the campaign trail today:

Brexit has depressed UK exports to the EU by 12%, and rejoining the customs union would undo only a fraction of the damage, research shared with the Guardian shows.

With the UK’s future relationship with the bloc likely to feature prominently in a potential Labour leadership contest, the economists John Springford and Anton Spisak, of the Centre for European Reform, provide fresh evidence of the damage caused by exiting.

A decade on from the referendum, they have found that services sector exports to the EU are 7% lower than they would have been if the UK had remained in the EU, and goods exports are 16% lower.

Using detailed trade data and economic modelling, they show that the “overwhelming majority” of the impact – 10% of the total 12% decline in exports – is accounted for by leaving the single market.

“The regulatory costs related to Brexit – such as new certification procedures and checks for compliance with EU standards – have had a much more significant impact on UK-EU trade than customs-related barriers,” they say.

The hardest-hit sectors have been travel, finance and insurance, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and agrifood.

The estimate of lost services exports is larger than previous research has suggested, because the authors take into account a significant uptick in services trade within the EU since the Covid pandemic that the UK has missed out on.

The trial of two Russian-linked arsonists who targeted property connected to Keir Starmer shows that the UK is under attack from bad actors who want to “exploit division” and “destabilise our democracy”, the prime minister has said.

Roman Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty on Monday of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property linked to the prime minister, and appear to have operated under the instruction of an online handler with links to Russia.

Speaking at the G7 in Évian-les-Bains, France, on Wednesday, Starmer said the attack on the house had “clearly impacted and affected my family”.

Lavrynovych and Carpiuc will be sentenced on Friday. Their co-defendant, Petro Pochynok, 35, was cleared. Lavrynovych was also convicted of damaging two properties by fire, being reckless as to whether life was endangered, on 11 and 12 May last year.

The sentencing comes during a period of heightened tension between Russia and the UK. On Sunday a Russian shadow fleet vessel containing 98,000 tonnes of oil was intercepted by British troops in the Channel, and on Tuesday a Russian warship fired warning shots at a British-flagged yacht.

Starmer said the warning shots were “deeply concerning and reckless”, and said the UK was dealing with proxy attacks from Russia “every single day”.

US defence secretary urges UK to spend more on defence, ‘step up and do even more’

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has offered his view on the relationship with the UK, after meeting Britain’s new defence minister Dan Jarvis.

His predecessor resigned in protest against low government spending on defence.

Hegseth said it was “a good meeting,” stressing that “the US-British defence alliance is an important one.”

He praised Jarvis for having first-hand experience of serving in a combat zone.

But he said “the message was the same: hey, we need you guys to step up and do even more, spend even more.”

He added:

If we need access and basing, whether it’s in the UK or say at Diego Garcia, we can’t live in a world where other countries are standing at the end of a runway with a clipboard trying to decide what flies and what doesn’t. It’s not gonna, it’s not gonna work for us. It’s not good in contingencies, and I don’t think it’s what he wants either.

He continued saying that “the more the UK spends on defence, the stronger Nato is going to be, the stronger western civilization is, and that’s a good thing.”

“I think [it was] a good start to a relationship that we need to renew even more,” Hegseth said.

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting has said his plan to ban “private equity sharks” from the social care sector was removed from the Labour manifesto, as he accused the government of “overcautiousness” in reforming the industry.

In a Fabian Society report on how to create a national care service, Streeting said overhauling social care was “one of the defining challenges of our age” but an “absence of good political leadership” was holding back change.

“In opposition, social care became a victim of our overcautiousness, which prohibited policy ideas from being floated for fear of what the Tories might say,” he said. “My plan to boot private equity sharks out of social care was cut from the manifesto, as was a proposal for a royal commission. The same culture continued into government.”

The private equity policy was first announced in 2022 and would have banned firms that failed to meet national standards in care, workers’ rights and financial sustainability.

A Labour source said Keir Starmer’s team took the policy out of the manifesto because they were worried it looked “anti-business”.

Why is there so much interest in a byelection in north-west England?

An election that could shape the future of UK politics for years to come is taking place on Thursday. But it is only happening in one small part of north-west England, with little more than 70,000 people eligible to vote.

Why? It is a question with a number of answers, some connected to the structure of the British political system, others much more topical.

Voters in Makerfield, a largely suburban constituency on the edge of Wigan, Greater Manchester , are choosing a new MP after the incumbent stood down. The candidate for the ruling Labour party and favourite to win, Andy Burnham, is the mayor of Greater Manchester and a former MP.

If Burnham wins, it is widely assumed that he will launch a campaign to unseat Keir Starmer as Labour leader and thus UK prime minister, or persuade Starmer to stand down. If things go as expected, the UK could have its seventh prime minister since 2017 in just a few weeks or months.

Read our full explainer here:

How quickly could Andy Burnham become the UK’s prime minister?

Those who don’t pay much attention to politics could be forgiven for not being fully on top of this, but the UK could have a new prime minister soon – potentially within weeks.

So how quickly could Andy Burnham replace Keir Starmer, if Burnham wins Thursday’s Makerfield byelection ? Actually, quite quickly, but only if events go in a particular way. And there are plenty of alternate outcomes.

The Labour party rulebook sets out that if an MP wants to challenge a sitting party leader, they must first be nominated by at least 20% of the parliamentary party (currently 81 MPs), as well as by at least 5% of all local branches or at least three party-affiliated groups, of which a minimum of two must be unions.

Any contenders who meet the threshold go forward to a vote of party members, assuming there is more than one challenger.

It also says that if a sitting leader is challenged, they do not need to meet these requirements and are automatically in the members’ vote – if they choose to do so.

There is a scenario in which Burnham is elected as Makerfield’s MP, Starmer decides he will step down immediately – perhaps after a mass of senior cabinet ministers tell him they will resign if he does not – and no other challengers come forward.

Dogs stun as owners head to the polls in Makerfield byelection

In our opening post, I did promise you some dogs at polling stations.

And reader, pictures of our four-legged friends exercising their democratic right have been flooding in from the various news agencies.

Here are the highlights so far:

Stay tuned for more dogs, more polling stations and more pictures of both as the day rolls on.

Burnham team tell ministers to delay resignations to avoid chaos

Andy Burnham’s campaign has been forced to talk ministers out of resigning as early as this weekend to avoid Keir Starmer’s government descending into chaos amid fallout from the Makerfield byelection , the Guardian can reveal.

As they prepare for a potential change of leader in the event he beats Reform on Thursday, Burnham’s team is increasingly concerned a rapid collapse of Starmer’s administration would mean further instability for the country.

Senior campaign figures believe Starmer should be given time to set out a timetable for his departure, with Burnham not planning to announce any challenge in the immediate aftermath of the result.

However, some ministers are “trigger happy” and have already proactively offered to quit, Burnham allies revealed, suggesting that several below cabinet level could resign over the coming days to try to pressurise Starmer.

“We’re trying to hold that back. We can’t have a Boris Johnson-style collapse. If they’re trying to force Keir’s hand with a kamikaze approach it will ultimately be counterproductive,” a senior campaign figure said.

The prime minister has insisted he will fight any challenge, believing he has a duty to the country, even though some of his closest allies predict the leadership crisis may reach a tipping point where he has no option but to stand down.

Starmer’s allies have discussed a “100m hurdles” strategy which involves throwing obstacles in Burnham’s way – such as the danger of losing the Manchester mayoralty, the fragile geopolitical situation and potentially a job offer .

Supporters of Burnham expect senior cabinet ministers to tell the prime minister over the weekend to agree to a handover of power, rather than fighting a bitter leadership contest that could stretch on for months.

Labour campaigners fear hordes of MPs may annoy public as Makerfield votes

Up to 3,000 Labour campaigners are expected to descend on Makerfield for Andy Burnham , prompting fears among organisers that the hordes of activists may end up overwhelming voters during Thursday’s byelection.

Local hotels are fully booked and party members are expected to be dispatched to polling stations, and to leaflet people waiting at bus stops and school gates to avoid swamping residents on their doorsteps.

Cabinet ministers are among the MPs who are expected to spend the day in the Greater Manchester constituency, where Burnham is seeking to defeat Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon.

“There is only so many times we can knock on doors on polling day without people getting too annoyed,” one MP said.

Backers of Burnham are expected to use the sheer numbers of activists and MPs doorstepping in Makerfield as proof that the mayor of Greater Manchester can re-energise the party to beat Reform UK – where the momentum will be crucial for him to then seek to immediately replace Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Some MPs and ministers arriving to campaign in the constituency over the past week are said to have sometimes been taken aback that there is little public-facing for them to do apart from dispatching leaflets through letterboxes. “There were just too many of them,” one said.

The campaign estimates that the number of volunteers – including hundreds of MPs – has meant each door in the constituency has been knocked at least six or seven times.

Reform UK’s candidate Robert Kenyon has visited St Aidan’s Parish Centre in Wigan, accompanied by party leader Nigel Farage, to cast his vote in today’s byelection.

Kenyon was pictured wearing a replica England shirt (looks like Italia 90 to me, most closely associated with Gazza blubbing at the end of a hard-fought contest…), following last night’s World Cup win for Thomas Tuchel’s men.

Polls open in Makerfield for historic byelection that could determine Keir Starmer’s future

Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.

The people of Makerfield, a constituency sitting just outside of Wigan, have at last begun voting in what could be one of the most consequential byelections in British political history.

Since Labour MP Josh Simons resigned to allow the mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham a clear run at returning to parliament – and the opportunity to become prime minister – residents have been inundated with party campaigners and reporters.

Yesterday Burnham urged people to “vote to change politics” and said he would take the “fight as high as I can possibly take it”.

But, despite the seat being considered one of Labour’s safest (it has been red since its creation in 1983), the governing party face a stiff challenge in the shape of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Although the Reform candidate Robert Kenyon’s campaign has been bogged down with the revelation of historic sexist social media post and, shall we say, less than impressive media performances under scrutiny, pollsters have the contest a close run thing.

It comes as Starmer on Wednesday said he was willing to offer the mayor of Greater Manchester a “big” job in his government, should Burnham win when Thursday’s votes are counted.

But allies of Burnham said he was not interested in the offer, insisting “the benefit Andy has is the wind of change for not having been associated with the government’s failings”.

Burnham and his allies are reported to be hoping for a “coronation” in which Starmer stands aside, rather than a leadership contest, which they believe would be damaging to the Labour party’s brand, according to the Times.

But the prime minister has repeatedly made it clear he has no intention of standing down and says that he will fight any challenge to his leadership.

What is certain is that the next 24 hours will prove to be a pivotal moment for this Labour government and, in particular, the prime minister.

Please be aware that the Guardian, like other news outlets, is not allowed to report details of campaigning or election issues while polls are still open today – they close at 10pm.

But you can follow our blog for all the latest in UK politics, as well as I am sure plenty of photos of dogs at polling stations. Because, let’s face it, that really is the true meaning of any British election.

Keyword – Australia news
Trefwoorden – Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia news, Pregnancy, Parents and parenting
Title – Inquest into Melbourne influencer’s death following freebirth halted after new phone evidence discovered | Health | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/melissa-davey
Link – Inquest into Melbourne influencer’s death following freebirth halted after new phone evidence discovered | Health | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T05:51:29.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/18/freebirth-death-melbourne-influencer-phone-evidence-inquest-ntwnfb

The closing submissions in an inquest into the death of a woman who gave birth at home with no support from medically trained health workers has been delayed, after new evidence came to light after a forensic analysis of her mobile phone.

Stacey Warnecke, a 30 year-old nutritionist, died on 29 September in Frankston hospital in Melbourne .

Warnecke, a wellness influencer, had paid birthkeeper Emily Lal $6,000 to support her to give birth at home without any medically trained staff involved, in what is sometimes called a “freebirth”.

Birthkeepers have no medical training and operate outside of the medical system.

The court heard Warnecke suffered a massive postpartum haemorrhage after she delivered the placenta, with an ambulance called approximately half an hour after the bleed was first noticed. Warnecke told Lal and her husband, Nathan, that she was short of breath and needed to lie down after the bleed.

In her evidence on Tuesday, Lal told the inquest that although she had been paid to support Warnecke, her role was primarily that of a supportive friend, that she was not clinically trained, and that it was not her responsibility to make Warnecke’s birth safer, or to call an ambulance unless specifically asked.

She said she never gave Warnecke medical advice, and only shared her own experiences of freebirthing her own children.

Lal also told the inquest that she no longer had access to texts Warnecke sent to her alerting her that she had gone into labour on 26 September, or any texts after that.

“I got a new phone and lost everything,” Lal told the court. Counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, asked Lal when she lost her phone, with Lal replying, “October or November, I can’t remember”.

Lal added that she then mainly texted Warnecke’s husband, Nathan, before going to their home to support the birth.

Lal gave evidence on the condition that the coroner granted her protection against her answers being used against her in future civil or criminal proceedings.

The inquest had been due to close on Friday.

On Thursday afternoon, Ellyard told that coroner that the contents of a forensic analysis of Warnecke’s phone had been made available to the court.

“It seems to me that the contents that have been made available raise issues that are going to require some further investigation and perhaps the gathering of further evidence,” Ellyard said.

As a result, the court was adjourned to a date yet to be determined.

Addressing Warnecke’s family members, who were listening to the inquest online, coroner Therese McCarthy said “sometimes investigations… take a different course because new information comes to hand”.

“I take the view that this material is of such significance that the court must delay making any findings and hearing submissions until we’ve had an opportunity to undertake a proper analysis of that material, and potentially call for more evidence.”

Earlier on Thursday, expert medical witnesses Dr Mark Tarrant, an obstetrician and gynaecologist and Dr Catherine Adams, a midwife, gave evidence that they believed Warneck’s condition was treatable had either a midwife been present at the home birth, or had Warnecke given birth at a hospital.

Adams said that postpartum haemorrhage is common enough that it is always in a midwives’ minds as a possibility, and that they are always assessing factors throughout pregnancy and labour that might increase that risk, so that they are ready to quickly intervene. She said quick intervention makes the condition treatable.

A midwife would have had treatments ready in case of such a complication, she said. “We recognise once it starts, it can be quite catastrophic,” she said.

Adams said she believed within half an hour of the haemorrhage occurring and with no treatment administered, medical staff subsequently treating Warnecke had “lost the opportunity to control the situation”.

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Alicia Keys, Pop and rock, Music, Culture
Title – Soul classics and stepmother celebrations: Alicia Keys’ 20 best songs – ranked! | Alicia Keys | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alexispetridis
Link – Soul classics and stepmother celebrations: Alicia Keys’ 20 best songs – ranked! | Alicia Keys | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T13:15:03.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/18/soul-classics-and-stepmother-celebrations-alicia-keys-20-best-songs-ranked

20. Skydive (Unlocked) (2021)

Two different takes on the same album – one traditional, the other more beat-heavy – packaged together, Keys was an experiment that didn’t quite work, but Skydive, co-written with Raphael Saadiq, is a fine song: both versions are great but Mike WiLL Made-It’s bumping rework wins by a fraction.

19. Jane Doe (2001)

A collaboration with former Xscape vocalist Kandi Burruss, Jane Doe is a splendidly sassy slice of early 00s get-your-hands-off-my-man R&B. In mood, if not exactly sound, you could file it next to the songs Burruss co-authored for TLC and Destiny’s Child: No Scrubs, Bills Bills Bills and Bug a Boo.

18. Wait Til You See My Smile (2009)

Shameless no-holds-barred 80s bombast – Billy Joel piano, booming drums, epic stadium rock synths – meets utterly infectious emotional uplift: on one level, Wait Til You See My Smile is completely ridiculous, but it is also irresistible, and Keys’ vocal, alternately sultry and ecstatic, is fantastic.

17. Love Looks Better (2020)

There is a distinct hint of EDM about the synths on Love Looks Better and the song, co-written by Ryan Tedder, is pure bright-hued pop. Clearly we’re a long way from the classic R&B of Keys’ debut, but her voice brings the soul, and it’s a churlish character indeed who doesn’t find themselves carried along with it.

16. Blended Family (What You Do for Love) (ft A$AP Rocky) (2016)

It is hard to think of many other pop songs about the pleasures of being a stepmother, or to think of any as sweetly affecting as this: charmingly plain-spoken lyrics (“even though I married your father / That’s not the only reason I’m here for ya”), killer sample from Edie Brickell’s What I Am, great guest verse by A$AP Rocky.

15. Dragon Days (2003)

You can, if you wish, view The Diary of Alicia Keys as a concept album about the ups and downs of its author’s romantic life. Dragon Days, which crops up halfway through, captures her very much on the upswing: her voice is a breathy growl, the music is impressively tough funk.

14. Fire We Make (ft Maxwell) (2012)

Fire We Make couldn’t be more straightforward: an old-fashioned, understated slow jam, decorated with horns and an impressively dextrous guitar solo. But who needs gimmicks when a song’s this good, and moreover features Maxwell in falsetto lover-man mode?

13. A Woman’s Worth (2005)

Originally a string-laden ballad from her debut album Songs in A Minor, A Woman’s Worth sounds best on the live Unplugged album: more urgent, stripped back to drums, bass, piano and guitar, bolstered by an audience audibly in raptures throughout.

12. Doesn’t Mean Anything (2009)

The first single from The Element of Freedom, Keys’ fourth album, was released to tepid reviews: the main criticism was that it was too unadventurous, but you could just as easily paint it as the distilled essence of what Keys does: an unflashy but superbly written song, piano driven, mid-tempo, beautifully sung, job done.

11. Diary (ft Tony! Toni! Toné! and Jermaine Paul) (2003)

Diary is all about the slow burn, its gradual shift from intimacy to intensity. The lyrics are about a relationship seemingly being conducted in secret, but by the end of the song, things appear to be fraying – a climax amped up by the appearance of Tony! Toni! Toné!

10. Empire State of Mind Part II (Broken Down) (2009)

You might expect Keys’ solo piano interpretation of the 21st century’s answer to New York, New York to be more melancholic than the swaggering Jay-Z version: it keeps the monster chorus, but if anything, it’s more romantic and glossy, closer to a show tune. It’s still a fantastic song.

9. Like You’ll Never See Me Again (2007)

Keys covered Prince’s How Come You Don’t Call Me on her debut album and his influence audibly lurks around Like You’ll Never See Me Again, a beautiful, falsetto-heavy ballad. But it’s not just that it sounds like Prince, it’s that you could definitely imagine him singing it, which counts as high praise indeed.

8. Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart (2009)

Keys’ album The Element of Freedom suggested a major musical shift, the 70s soul influences displaced by inspiration from 80s pop. Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart is the leading example: a thunderous old-skool hip-hop beat, equally immense synths, and, most importantly, a superb pop song at its core.

7. Karma (2003)

Keys trained as a classical pianist – she studied the Suzuki method and is a fan of Chopin. Perhaps that background seeped into the sound of Karma, which splits the difference between the kind of high-drama strings popular in early 00s hip-hop and a more complex, rococo arrangement.

6. Underdog (2020)

Co-written by Ed Sheeran and his regular collaborator Amy Wadge, the never-give-up mood of Underdog took on a fresh potency when Covid was declared a pandemic two months after the song’s release. But you don’t need to be in the middle of a global catastrophe to appreciate its infectiously breezy sound and hopeful message.

5. No One (2007)

The first single and the standout track from Keys’ third album, As I Am, No One boasts possibly the single best vocal performance the singer has ever captured in the studio: no fireworks, just pure wrenching emotion from the opening note. Plus, the chorus is amazing.

4. Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) (remix ft Drake) (2010)

The original is great, but it’s the Drake remix – recorded at the height of his initial purple patch – that you really want to hear. It is dreamier and more overcast in tone, which perfectly fits the subject matter: teetering on the verge of romantic commitment in your late 20s.

3. You Don’t Know My Name (2003)

The pillowy sound of 70s soft soul given a wonderful 21st-century reboot – the sample comes from the Main Ingredient’s 1975 album track Let Me Prove My Love to You – You Don’t Know My Name is lush and heady: the whole track sounds dizzy with unrequited love.

2. Fallin’ (2001)

Fallin’ was Keys’ breakthrough, but it came after a number of false starts: a 90s major-label deal went nowhere. It is tempting to suggest you can hear her sensing that this might be her last chance in the forcefulness of her vocal: certainly, it is an extraordinarily powerful introduction to her work.

1. If I Ain’t Got You (2003)

Ostensibly a love song, but actually inspired by the death of Aaliyah and the 9/11 attacks that took place a few weeks after the singer’s passing, If I Ain’t Got You is Alicia Keys’ most popular song – more than 1.5bn streams on Spotify alone – for a reason: beautifully played and sung, it is the perfect summation of Keys’ ability to come up with a timeless classic soul song that sounds entirely modern, rather than retro. Pub quiz fact: she nearly gave it away to Christina Aguilera, believing “I’ll write a hundred more like that”, until her A&R convinced her not to.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, LGBTQ+ rights, Zach Braff, Romance films, Culture, Drama films
Title – Girls Like Girls review – Sapphic teen romance is a precious and predictable yawn-a-thon | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/emma-madden
Link – Girls Like Girls review – Sapphic teen romance is a precious and predictable yawn-a-thon | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T11:00:02.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/18/girls-like-girls-movie-review

O n 26 June 2015, the US supreme court finally declared gay marriage legal nationwide. Two days later, singer-songwriter and former Disney Channel alum Hayley Kiyoko effectively came out to the world with her debut single, Girls Like Girls . “Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new,” she sang with triumphant bluntness. Its accompanying music video, featuring a Sapphic teen romance, spread fast and wild across Tumblr, a website defined by its intensely nostalgic aesthetics, where style and identity formation merged for many queer teens. Today, the music video has 163m views on YouTube.

Kiyoko, now engaged to former The Bachelor contestant Becca Tilley, has since been hailed the “lesbian Jesus” by fans. Queer expressions in pop music, from King Princess to Chappell Roan to Reneé Rapp , have become far more common in the decade since the music video was released, but Kiyoko still seems to inspire one of the most dedicated, and specifically Sapphic, audience in queer pop music today.

Unlike her more sardonic peers, Kiyoko carries forward the neoliberal optimism of the Obama years. Kiyoko’s 2023 novel adaptation of the Girls Like Girls music video, which became a New York Times No 1 bestseller, continued that same spirit, and it persists in her directorial debut of the same name.

Kiyoko’s vision for Girls Like Girls, the movie, is guided by the Obamacore mantra that representation matters . Her stated reason for making this film was that “ we need more queer stories ”, buying into the liberal belief that visibility for historically underrepresented groups like the LGBTQ+ community constitutes political progress in itself. But in Kiyoko’s film, representation is all that matters. The film assumes that depiction alone is meaningful enough to excuse other glaring deficiencies in its film-making.

Set in small-town Oregon in the summer of 2006, the film follows Coley (Maya Da Costa), a quiet and sullen teenager newly relocated to live with her estranged father – Zach Braff jumpscare – following the death of her mother, a textbook lesbian backstory. Biking through suburban back roads in flannel shirts and low-rise jeans, with a nascent butchy earthiness, she encounters Sonya (Myra Molloy), the ideal American girl: pretty, charismatic, but unhappily tethered to her boyfriend, Trenton.

The two strike up an instant connection that is ambiguously romantic, pushing at the limits of female friendship as they twist their legs together and whisper “Olive Juice” to one another, a phrase that resembles “I love you” on the mouth. Throughout the girls’ tryst, Coley becomes the watcher and Sonya the watched, gazing longingly at her crush’s legs and ass.

As in Kiyoko’s music videos, color overwhelms the film. It’s washed in a burnt orange, digitally re-creating analogue warmth with the nostalgia of an Instagram memory. Nothing in the film is left implicit, the film’s ache for a bygone time as heavy-handed as the romance at its center.

In the opening seconds, the film unsubtly tells us we are in 2006, as Coley cycles past a banner celebrating that year’s graduates. She picks up her iPod Classic (2006), wears her shoddy over-the-ear headphones (2006), plays Tegan and Sara (lesbian) and logs into AIM (where she curiously has only seven contacts).

Stylistically, Girls Like Girls strains desperately for a kind of cinéma vérité, with its overlapping dialogue and over-the-shoulder shots. But there is no vérité to be found; the script is far too rote to pull off any sense of realism. “I’m tired of running,” says Sonya, putting her head on Coley’s shoulder. “So don’t,” Coley replies, with the faux-profundity of bad YA fiction.

Molloy and Da Costa’s performances exceed the script. Their lingering pre-kiss glances invoke the same stomach-dropping fear and excitement that comes with a first smooch. When their lips finally lock, it feels like relief: ravenous and real. There is curiously little sex for an R-rated film; just a lot of PG-13 neck kissing. But these moments are clumsily stitched together by a rambling storyboard, Kiyoko crafting cute vignettes without a sufficient narrative backbone, like a horror director constructing a plot merely to connect scenes of gore.

Kiyoko’s adolescent fantasy is perhaps even too faithful. Like a teenager’s view of the world, it is thoroughly depoliticized. Towards the end of the film, Sonya says her relationship with Coley is “wrong”, but there’s no indication as to why it’s wrong or to whom. Nothing in Girls Like Girls exists beyond individual feeling, and there are no larger institutions to speak of, not even a school.

It all leaves the film stranded in an unsatisfying place: intensely personal yet emotionally unearned, politically gestural yet totally vacant of politics. Kiyoko has made a film obsessed with being seen. It never once learns how to look.

Girls Like Girls is out in US cinemas and on VOD in Australia on 19 June, with a UK release date to be announced

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Australia, Football, World Cup, Australia sport, Sport
Title – Mo Touré’s parents on the struggles that paved way for a Socceroos career: ‘It was life or death’ | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jack-snape
Link – Mo Touré’s parents on the struggles that paved way for a Socceroos career: ‘It was life or death’ | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T02:10:29.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/18/mo-toure-parents-refugee-journey-to-australia-socceroos-world-cup

T he stories of these Socceroos can be traced back through grassy fields around Australia in the 1990s and 2000s, when 20 or so wide-eyed young footballers were just coming to terms with the ball. There were games, goalposts, quartered oranges. Old teammates, new boots. Season-to-season, year-on-year.

Their progression to the international arena is a secret recipe countries have spent millions of dollars trying to perfect, with flashy academies and talent identification programs. Consultants within elite football call this the talent pathway.

But go back further, to where one Socceroo’s story begins, and there is no path.

Amara and Mawa Touré – parents of striker Mo Touré – were children when war broke out in Liberia in 1989. “Everything went helter-skelter, and every Liberian started running for their life,” Amara says.

Amara, his little brother and adult sister walked for 18 days to make it to the border with Guinea. They survived on ripening wild fruit and vegetables, with a warning to avoid anyone they came across. “It was a scary time,” he says.

“But now when I reflect on it, it would have been even scarier if I knew the ramifications of what we were going through. Because it was life or death.”

Amara spent almost 14 years in Guinea. Initially he was supported by UNHCR and given essentials like food, a tent and a mosquito net. He moved from the refugee camp to marginally improved conditions in the broader community, but his life remained constrained.

“Football was everything for me,” he says. “When I walked on to the park, I felt that is where I got to demand my respect, and that’s where I felt good. So my sanctuary was only football.”

Amara and Mawa met at age 20. Their first son Al Hassan was born, followed by Mohamed – now better known as “Mo” – before they travelled to Australia on humanitarian visas. Both brothers have become Socceroos.

“Every parent wants one’s child to go into something that they like and they excel at,” Amara says. “So when I would see them playing football and they’re entertaining people, I can’t afford not to be happy.”

Mo is wearing No 9 at this World Cup . “Wearing the Socceroo jersey represents freedom,” he says. “It was the land that gave us opportunity, that lent us a helping hand, so every time I just play, I play with freedom and I always remember how things could have been if we weren’t in Australia.”

The four refugees within the Socceroos squad – Touré, Nestory Irankunda, Awer Mabil and Milos Degenek – have found themselves in the spotlight during the internationally celebrated refugee week, culminating in the United Nations’ world refugee day on Sunday.

They have contributed to the Socceroos’ video promoting cultural diversity and Touré’s family are working with local charity Australia for UNHCR to support displaced people. That involves the retelling of the family’s trauma.

The Socceroos striker says it’s something they do willingly. “It’s just something that happens and for us. It’s, I wouldn’t say normal, but it’s common. We see a lot of our family members or a lot of the African community have similar stories and everybody came and migrated to Australia in a different way. So we’re just happy to share our story and then people find out how we did it.”

Mo was seven months old when he first arrived in Australia, in 2004. The family settled in Adelaide’s inner-west suburb of Croydon. “My early life in Australia, I thought it was good because I didn’t know better,” he says. “I can now see that there were times in my childhood where my parents struggled, but I was too young to really understand.”

Sometimes others in the neighbourhood would be given possessions or treats while the Touré boys were left wanting. “I just thought it was them [his parents] punishing me or them not wanting to do it,” Mo says. “But now that I’m older, I understand the struggles, and the real reason why we didn’t have all these things was because simply it was hard. Life was hard at that time.”

Ferrying around three young footballers – Al Hassan now plays for Sydney FC and younger brother Musa is at Mo’s former club Randers in Denmark – was not easy, either. Some years at least one of the boys would play every day of the week.

“It would be raining, and my parents would be there, freezing, waiting for us to finish training,” Mo says. “When we were very young, they would take our boots off before we got in the car as they didn’t want mud in there. Oh man, the next day they [would have to] clean the car [anyway].”

Australia is now grateful for their sacrifice. Al Hassan debuted for the Socceroos last year, when he took the field alongside his brother in a friendly against Venezuela. Though only Mo won selection for this World Cup, the family were in Vancouver to see him play a key role against Turkey. “This is our country now,” Amara says. “Wearing that green and gold and going there and fighting for that country, to me, is the greatest thing I can ever see them do.”

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Brexit, Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, Politics, European Union, Labour, UK news
Title – The Guardian view on Britain and the EU: Ed Davey is right – a changed world changes the argument | Editorial | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial
Link – The Guardian view on Britain and the EU: Ed Davey is right – a changed world changes the argument | Editorial | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T17:50:41.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/17/the-guardian-view-on-britain-and-the-eu-ed-davey-is-right-a-changed-world-changes-the-argument

M embership of the European single market was at stake when the UK voted on Brexit , but it was not the decisive question in the campaign. The leave campaign dishonestly promised a cost-free severance of ties with Britain’s largest trading partner. As immigration came to dominate the debate, the requirement to allow free movement of people as a condition of seamless integration with European markets undermined the remainers’ most compelling argument.

Reluctance to advocate a liberal migration regime imposed a taboo on calls to reconsider the Brexit settlement, even as warnings about the cost of rupture were vindicated. Now, after a decade of forsaken growth, the mood is finally changing.

On Wednesday, Sir Ed Davey used a speech marking the referendum anniversary to call for Britain to rejoin the single market. The Liberal Democrat leader describes Brexit as an experiment that has failed. He observes that the world has changed since 2016. These things are self-evidently true and public opinion has shifted accordingly. Opinion polls regularly show a majority would vote to reverse the referendum outcome.

The idea that Britain needed liberation from Brussels to enjoy competitive advantages was misguided already at a time when the US was a reliable ally, upholding a rules-based global economic order. It looks catastrophically mistaken with Donald Trump in the White House, using tariffs as a weapon of economic coercion, and with Russia waging a brutal war on Europe’s eastern frontier, while supporting acts of sabotage to destabilise democratic politics in countries that support Ukraine.

Although the Lib Dem position is supported by strategic and economic logic, those factors do not easily rival the forces of domestic politics that mobilise anti-immigration sentiment to shut down discussion of Britain’s need to reconnect with the European project. That resistance can be challenged. It can be argued that Brexit failed to deliver the control that the leavers promised; that Eurosceptic diplomatic vandalism made the task of border management harder. It could also be noted that freedom of movement was a reciprocal benefit, not a one-way street – an opportunity denied to the generation that lives with the consequences of a ballot in which they were too young to participate.

That perspective deserved greater salience in the debate 10 years ago. Whether it would have swayed public opinion then, or can move the dial now, is unknown. Anxiety around appearing to support “open-door” immigration is not unfounded. It explains why Sir Keir Starmer ruled out single-market membership in his 2024 manifesto, why that red line still limits the ambition of Labour’s “reset” in EU relations and why it has taken the Lib Dems two years to get from their own caution on these matters at the last general election to their current, more assertive stance . It is easier to set out a theory of better UK-EU relations from opposition than it is to negotiate a better deal in government.

Lib Dem plans for Britain to rejoin the single market are not going to be enacted any time soon, but that doesn’t invalidate the call to reconsider. The challenges are formidable, especially when it comes to changing political narratives around migration. But a lesson from the past decade is that arguments for integration with Europe will only gain ground when politicians show the courage to make them in the first place.

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

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Biodiversity, Zoology, Heritage, Conservation, Environment, Science, Wildlife, Climate crisis, Kew Gardens, Libraries
Title – A bonanza for fans of the natural world: the digital library sharing 64m pages of scientific knowledge with everyone | Biodiversity | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/donna-ferguson
Link – A bonanza for fans of the natural world: the digital library sharing 64m pages of scientific knowledge with everyone | Biodiversity | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T07:00:03.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/natural-world-digital-biodiversity-heritage-library-scientific-knowledge-free-access-aoe

S ome go there to read about the wood that Victorian manufacturers used to make walking sticks. Others want to see an illustration of a Tasmanian tiger or marvel at the field diary of one of the first known botanists to explore the Antarctic.

Over the past 20 years, more than 64m pages have been made freely available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) – a digital treasure trove for fans of the natural world. More than 680 museums, universities, libraries and scientific institutions from China, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand to Europe, Africa, Mexico, Canada and the US, have contributed to the library.

This week, a report from Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew revealed the crucial role digitisation is playing in “transforming our ability to understand and respond to the climate and biodiversity crises”, but it was the creation of the BHL 20 years ago that first demonstrated how bringing centuries of scientific knowledge online can unlock transformative discoveries and insights about the natural world.

David Iggulden, who chairs the BHL executive committee alongside his job as head of data and digital, library and archives at RBG Kew, describes the library as an invaluable and “absolutely essential” resource for scientists in the field. But it is also used by scientific researchers, environmental historians, educators, art historians, artists, citizen scientists and members of the public who – like Iggulden – simply enjoy browsing its contents on a rainy weekend.

“I just get caught up in it sometimes, looking at the various collections,” he says. “I think it’s amazing that we can explore such a vast array of different collections from very different institutions.”

As well as published biodiversity literature and journals, there are letters, illustrations, climate records, field diaries, ecosystem profiles, distribution records and manuscripts containing the original collecting stories of a particular species or detailing voyages of discovery.

Manuscript on parchment from the Circa instans . Dating from about 1190, it is the oldest book in the digital library. Photograph: LuEsther T Mertz Library/New York Botanical Garden/Biodiversity Heritage Library

The oldest book is one of the earliest western medical manuscripts, a medieval pharmacopeia known as the Circa instans , which dates back to approximately 1190. Considered a fundamental text in the development of modern botany, it helped to provide clarity across medieval Europe by standardising plant names and their uses, and was digitised by the New York Botanical Garden last year.

Another highlight for Iggulden is an 1892 illustrated exhibition catalogue by Henry Howell & Co, a Victorian firm based in London, which marketed itself as the world’s largest manufacturer of walking sticks.

The illustrated exhibition catalogue of Henry Howell & Co. Photograph: Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Biodiversity Heritage Library

Catalogues such as this are helpful for scientists studying plants used for economic purposes, as well as the importance and characteristics of wood, and how wood has been used over history, he says. “It’s a really fascinating find – and quite different to what you’d expect in the BHL.”

Watercolour sketches from Sir Joseph Hooker’s illustrated Antarctic journal. Photograph: Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Biodiversity Heritage Library

One of the most significant books in the collection is the botanist Sir Joseph Hooker’s illustrated Antarctic journal , which includes his watercolour sketches of two volcanoes, first sighted in 1841 on his expedition to the continent with Capt James Clark Ross. “It’s the personal account of Hooker’s adventure … to the Antarctic and the sights he saw there,” says Iggulden.

Being able to share such unique, handwritten manuscripts with the world fulfils one of the key aims of the BHL, says Nicole Kearney, who leads the Australian branch of the library, based at Museums Victoria. “I once uploaded a handwritten field diary about birds in Australia, and someone who was studying the flooding of the river in the region wrote to me and said: ‘you’ve just given me this incredible resource where I’m able to tell every time this river flooded between 1947 and 1957’ because it was written down in this diary in the mid-20th century – which I thought was all about birds.”

During the pandemic, historical journals uploaded to the BHL helped scientists to show that there had been a “massive change” in the distribution and abundance of rare Australian orchids during the “black summer” of the wildfires , in late 2019 and early 2020. “That meant that those orchid species could be reassessed and their threatened species status was changed as a result,” Kearney says.

Handwritten pages from the 1947-1957 Australian ornithological field diaries of A Graham Brown. Photographs: Museums Victoria/Biodiversity Heritage Library

When she talks about the role that BHL plays for scientists, she often quotes Charles Darwin: “The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library.”

She says: “I’m sure Darwin would agree that, in today’s world, it is essential that we can access the world’s biodiversity knowledge online. And that this knowledge is freely accessible for everyone.”

One of her favourite books in the collection is The Mammals of Australia by the British naturalist John Gould , published in 1863. It features an arresting illustration of a Tasmanian tiger, a native Australian marsupial which was hunted to extinction after it was – perhaps erroneously – blamed for killing sheep. “The last one died in a zoo in Tasmania in 1936,” says Kearney. “It was such a stunning creature. It had a pouch but looked very much like a dog or wolf with stripes. There is nothing else like it in Australia, it’s like nothing in existence today.”

The entry for the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, in The Mammals of Australia (1863), by British naturalist John Gould. Photographs: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives/Biodiversity Heritage Library

The BHL Flickr album is followed by tens of thousands of people and highlights some of the more unusual copyright-free illustrations in its collection (some of which have been turned into an award-winning jigsaw puzzle app, The Art of Fauna ).

One popular album is Louis Renard’s 18th-century book, Poissons, Ecrivisses et Crabes , which was uploaded to the BHL in 2016. It features an illustration of a mermaid and other imaginary creatures mixed in among the scientifically accurate representations of real fishes, crayfishes and crabs.

The mermaid and another imaginary creature illustrated in Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes by Louis Renard, 1754. Photograph: Ernst Mayr Library/Museum of Comparative Zoology/ Harvard University/Biodiversity Heritage Library

“It was originally published in 1719 and is considered to be the very earliest known publication in colour on fish, yet about 10% of the species are actually completely fantastical,” says Kearney. “It’s a really important part of scientific literature from the age of enlightenment, [when] people were going out and reaching parts of the world that had never been seen before. Artists would interpret what people had told them and they would copy drawings from other artists who may not have ever seen the species,” says Kearney. “They believed they were all real.”

T he BHL was born 20 years ago after librarians came up with a radical idea to improve global research into climate change and biodiversity loss at a transformative moment in internet history. It was the dawn of web 2.0, when using the internet for networking and socialising was starting to become fashionable, and a sense of optimism and opportunity was in the air. What if 10 prominent museums and institutions in the UK and the US digitised their historic biodiversity literature collections to create one online library that every scientist around the world could access for free?

At the time, the idea of working internationally on a mass digitisation project was “really revolutionary”, says Iggulden.

An excerpt and illustration from Sir Joseph Hooker’s illustrated Antarctic journal 1839-43. Photograph: Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew/Biodiversity Heritage Library

Today, however, the future of the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature is under threat. Earlier this year the Smithsonian Institution, which has faced severe funding cuts under the Trump administration , stopped hosting the BHL’s administration functions, paying some staff wages and supporting its technical infrastructure. “A ‘tick over budget’, just to keep it running as it is, would be ideally about a million dollars a year – and we only have funding, we estimate, until the end of 2027,” says Iggulden.

“It would be just horrendous – devastating, really – to lose it after coming so far and unlocking so much.”

Even additions to the library’s Flickr page were paused because “we don’t have the resources to keep adding to it”, says Kearney. “There is so much more functionality we could bring in [to the BHL] if we had the money to incorporate AI, improved optical character recognition software and a mobile-friendly and multilingual platform,” she says.

Illustrations from Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes by Louis Renard, 1754. Photograph: Ernst Mayr Library/Museum of Comparative Zoology/ Harvard University/Biodiversity Heritage Library

Iggulden says the potential for BHL to use AI to unlock data is huge. “AI is a real positive for BHL,” he says. “The library contains vast quantities of taxonomic, geographical, ecological and specimen-level knowledge that remains inaccessible to modern computational workflows. So, unlocking this at scale would create new opportunities for biodiversity synthesis, collections linkage, historical ecological analysis and AI-assisted scientific discovery.”

Kearney says the journey of enlightenment told by the books in the BHL can remind us of how much we still don’t know about the natural world, and help us to rediscover a sense of wonder and awe about the species which have – and have not – gone extinct.

“The BHL is fundamental to our understanding of all the species that we share this world with, and our ability to save them,” says Kearney. “We now have 64m pages of knowledge at our fingertips, which we need to make more discoverable and accessible. There’s so much more we could be doing.”

John Gould’s illustration of the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, in his 1863 book, The Mammals of Australia. Photograph: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives/Biodiversity Heritage Library

Readers can help secure the future of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and keep its collections free and open to the world, via the Donate button at biodiversitylibrary.org .