The betting scandal story broken by the Guardian’s UK political editor, Pippa Crerar, is the dominant and defining story of the British election campaign, the final degradation in a bleak era. This week, we revealed that a fifth Conservative politician is to be investigated by the gambling watchdog for allegedly placing a suspicious bet on the general election date. The story has clearly cut through with voters and, as our analysis suggests, may well erode further the public’s trust in politicians. Elsewhere, Charlotte Edwardes followed likely new prime minister Keir Starmer (photographed, above, by Harry Borden) for two months to get a sense of who he really is and Helen Pidd returned to Leigh in Greater Manchester for Today in Focus, four years after her first episode looking at why this “red wall” town had fallen to the Tories. Our reporters continued to fan out across the country for our Path to Power series, as did our columnists – Jonathan Freedland and Nesrine Malik were on the ground in West Norfolk and Ilford North.
In France, Angelique Chrisafis has been covering every twist of the dramatic parliamentary election campaign, from the far right’s disturbing manifesto pledges to appeals for voters to fight France’s “rampant racism”. Ashifa Kassam met the French citizens from Muslim backgrounds who feel they have had to leave the country in recent years. The first round of the vote is on Sunday.
I was in Berlin last week, attending the Progressive Governance Summit and hosting a conversation between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the writer Lea Ypi. We talked about the far right’s recent electoral successes and why the best way to win back young voters is to ensure that everyone “from an untrained Amazon worker” to “Elon Musk’s son” can live without fear of the future.
Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate was expertly analysed by our panel of US columnists. Our Politics Weekly America podcast asked if there was a way back for the president as clamour grew for him to step aside. Meanwhile, a new US politics series, The election operators, launched with two gripping profiles of the personalities shaping Trump’s election bid: David Smith stepped into Steve Bannon’s basement office in Capitol Hill, while Ed Pilkington profiled the increasingly extreme Charlie Kirk, once considered a figurehead for conservative youth.
On the second anniversary of the murder of Bruno Pereira and the Guardian journalist Dom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, wrote an extraordinary report on the Brazilian special forces unit preparing for battle with the criminals responsible for their murders and the destruction of the Amazon.
If you’re keen to encourage more wildlife into your garden or outside area, Rachel Dixon’s piece on how to make even the tiniest space into a nature reserve is full of brilliant ideas. One gardener had, over 30 years, recorded 2,673 species of wildlife in her modest suburban English garden, seven of them new to Britain and four new to science.
Our correspondents at Euro 2024 continue to offer great football writing with powerful political, social and cultural themes. Barney Ronay wrote about his complicated experience of travelling across Germany as the descendant of a Jewish family displaced by the Nazis; and on how Cristiano Ronaldo’s fame has seemingly outgrown football. Nick Ames examined the tensions between Balkan rivals being played out across the tournament, while Jonathan Liew wrote about the likely end of Gareth Southgate’s journey with England.
Our books team produced a fabulous holiday reading list as chosen by the authors Zadie Smith, David Nicholls, Alice Roberts and Bernardine Evaristo and many more.
For the Observer Magazine, Jay Rayner interviewed Si King, the surviving member of the Hairy Bikers. King talked movingly about the loss of his friend, Dave Myers, and the incredible adventure he and Myers shared.
And, in case you missed it, Tuesday’s episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight was all about the UK election. The section referenced much of the Guardian’s reporting from the past 14 years, including work by Frances Ryan and John Domokos, on the impact of austerity on disabled people.
One more thing …I mentioned that during my Berlin visit I had shared a stage with Lea Ypi; she is the author of Free, a memoir about growing up in communist Albania under Enver Hoxha. She was 10 when the regime fell, and life as she knew it disappeared before her eyes. The next decade, as the country turned abruptly to a kind of liberal capitalism, was just as dramatic, in often surprising ways. It’s a book full of compassion and humanity. And it’s funny too.
