| The Guardian’s UK political editor, Pippa Crerar, revealed that Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide placed a £100 bet on a July election three days before the prime minister named the date. Craig Williams, who is standing again to be an MP in Montgomeryshire, reluctantly admitted placing a “flutter” on Wednesday evening – then on Thursday apologised for a “huge error of judgment”. Meanwhile, economics editor Larry Elliott analysed the sums in both the Conservatives’ and Labour’s manifestos, to see if they all added up. Ian Martin, a writer on the classic BBC political sitcom The Thick of It, authored a very funny piece on Rishi Sunak’s comedic moments, and found him to be “the great improv comic of our age”. Former prime minister Gordon Brown wrote about the shocking normalisation of food banks in the first in our series on emblems of 14 years of Tory Britain, and Rupert Neate’s First Edition newsletter with the pollster John Curtice was essential reading on the breakdown of trust in our politicians. (Sign up here to get First Edition every weekday). The European elections were always going to be an important moment in the EU’s political life, but no one expected their aftermath to be quite so explosive. Our team of European correspondents charted every moment of a gripping night in which the centre held in Brussels but the far right made gains in several countries and the Greens lost about a quarter of their seats. . Last Friday’s episode of Today in Focus, with Emma Graham-Harrison and host Michael Safi, was truly unmissable. With Gaza on the brink of famine, Emma spoke to protesters who were trying to stop aid getting into the strip, and to those who had risked their lives to ensure aid would get through. Emma worked incredibly hard to gain the trust of local people on both sides to understand their perspectives. The US politics team launched American psyche, a new series exploring the complex psycho-social dynamics shaping the terrain on which the presidential election is being fought. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Karen Middleton, spoke with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on the Full Story podcast about pro-Palestine protests outside electorate offices around Australia; the Indigenous voice referendum, eight months on; and the opposition party’s decision to ditch the 2030 emissions target. We published a major investigation showing how drug cartels are forcing migrant children to work as foot soldiers in Europe’s booming cocaine trade. The Guardian’s Mark Townsend, Ana Lucía González Paz, Lucy Swan and Harvey Symons reported and visualised a trail linking hundreds of vulnerable African minors with ruthless gangs. And finally, I loved reading Steve Rose on the “sad, stupid” rise of the sigma male, a new form of toxic masculinity; Alexis Petridis’s joyous five-star review of Taylor Swift’s UK leg of her Eras tour; and the story of Naomi and Deej, who, after first meeting online via a Guardian Blind date during the pandemic, are the latest Blind date couple to get married. One more thing … England fans who are optimistic about the Euros, the strong possibility of a Labour government … maybe it’s inevitable that the best new music of the year in the UK has a strong 90s flavour, too. Mentored by Goldie and claiming Britpop as an inspiration, the brilliant Bradford-born Nia Archives recently told Saturday magazine of her part in the resurgent popularity of jungle and drum and bass – and her hopes it will act as a unifying force in a filter bubble era. And, given all the news above, we could all do with some of that. Our music critic Alexis Petridis called her debut album Silence Is Loud “impressive and bold”, and she will surely be a breakout star of the summer festival season across Europe – including a peaktime slot at Glastonbury later this month. | 