Why we’re asking the questions that both major parties are avoiding

In just under two weeks’ time, 14 years of chaotic Conservative rule in the United Kingdom may be over.

It’s been a strangely airless election campaign so far, with a seemingly endless number of disastrous polls leaving senior Conservatives effectively admitting defeat and pivoting to warning against a Labour “supermajority”, while Keir Starmer’s party seek to stay disciplined and say as little as possible. This dynamic has not done much to enthuse a weary public, or to shift the anti-politics mood. Meanwhile, as our lively Election Edition newsletter and the reverberations from political editor Pippa Crerar’s campaign-defining scoop on the Tories breaking betting rules have shown, Sunak’s campaign has lurched from crisis to crisis.

We have sought to take the pulse of the country (as I wrote to you at the beginning of the campaign, we want to cover not just the odds, but the stakes). Our reporters have spent the last few weeks fanned out across the nation. In cities, towns and villages they’ve heard from many voters who are completely disillusioned with politicians and the possibility of change. The polls suggest a looming historic Labour majority, but are they masking a lot of undecided voters? We’re not assuming anything.

You can certainly sense that disillusionment in our latest Anywhere but Westminster films. Last week, we returned to Stoke-on-Trent, a city in central England that has, in the past, proved a bellwether for the mood of the nation. In a stunning film John Harris and John Domokos spoke to people who had been promised great change by Brexit and Boris Johnson – and had voted for them – but had been left mourning the further erosion of shared social spaces, the rise of zero-hours contracts and a torn social fabric. There were signs of hope but, overall, we found people who said that life has become significantly harder over the last 14 years and had scant enthusiasm for any party.

This loss of faith in politics has underscored our Path to power series. In it, our reporters have embedded in some key seats across the country to dig beneath the manifestos and campaign events to make sense of the human impulses and fears driving voting choices: from Muslim voters in the northern English town of Burnley to farmers in Cornwall in the south-west.

Of course, the UK isn’t the only country preparing to vote in this year of big votes, so you’ll see similarly people-focused reporting in our coverage of other elections. This week European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam was in Marseille and Lyon in France, listening to the fears of Muslim voters as the radical-right National Rally looks like it could form the next government. In the United States, many of our reporters have spent 2024 around the nation, trying to understand the sense of malaise that is giving Donald Trump a good chance of returning to the White House. Our excellent American psyche series is interrogating how a daily storm of anger, fear and disillusionment is impacting people’s political choices ahead of 5 November. The vibes ahead of the election – wrote Ankita Rao in the introduction to the series – are off.

Until next week.

Berlin correspondent Deborah Cole reported from Brandenburg an der Havel, an hour from central Berlin, to try and find out why the far-right, authoritarian Alternative für Deutschland party made such big gains among young German voters in this month’s EU elections.

Children at the top 250 English private schools have more than 10 times as much outdoor space as those who go to state schools, an exclusive Guardian analysis revealed.

Raekha Prasad’s long read on the disproportionate number of black men dying in police custody in the UK was the fruit of two years of research and interviews with bereaved families. It was a powerfully emotional piece of storytelling, as well as an invaluable analysis of long-hidden data.

Guardian US continued to spotlight environmental justice and the devastating impact of extreme heat, as much of the US was scorched by a heatwave and temperatures in Mexico hit 53C (127F), its hottest June day ever.

Guardian Australia’s politics and environment teams, led by Karen Middleton and Adam Morton, deconstructed the opposition party’s announcement that they would plan to create seven nuclear power sites across the country with explainers, fact checks and analysis.

The movement campaigning for the right to die on your own terms in the UK is gaining momentum. Novelist Julian Barnes and cook Prue Leith were among other famous faces who argued forcefully for the choice in a powerful Saturday magazine special about assisted dying.

After Denmark banned South Korea’s Buldak spicy ramyeon noodles (also known as “fire noodles”) for being dangerously hot, four brave volunteers from Guardian Australia put their tastebuds, and other body parts, on the line to see just how spicy they really are. “I have sweaty eyelids!”, one said.

Coco Khan was funny and perceptive with her evaluation of the modern British slang abbreviations – think “platty jubes” and “genny lec” – that are giving younger people a more casual way to talk about their lives and struggles.

Chris Godfrey wrote candidly about how hypnotherapy helped him give up smoking - and how it could be used in the treatment of other destructive behaviours. The piece was illustrated with great portraits by Linda Nylind.

As Euro 2024 kicked into gear in Germany, we had a correspondent at every match and reflected on a tournament with, so far, some excellent football and some questions for the organisers, as Jonathan Liew wrote about the dismal treatment of fans en route to Serbia v England. Meanwhile the hosts of Football Weekly, Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning, interviewed prospective incoming prime minister Keir Starmer about the state of football in the UK … beginning with their surprise that he’d asked to come on.

One more thing … I love the Women’s prize for fiction, which has been helping me find fantastic new novelists since it was founded in 1996. This year they launched the new Women’s prize for nonfiction alongside it, since the founder, Kate Mosse, noticed how few works of serious nonfiction by women were being reviewed. And I was delighted that the winner of the inaugural prize was Guardian columnist Naomi Klein, whose book Doppelganger is a clever, funny and deeply original analysis of the strange times we live in.

Cook this | Grilled lettuce and halloumi salad with herby sherry vinaigrette

This simple salad by Gail Simmons can be enjoyed without any grilling. But if the grill is lit anyway, the char and smoke add extra dimensions. A bold sherry vinaigrette, with a touch of sweetness and lots of fresh herbs, makes a balanced and beautiful dressing.

Listen to this | A black hole awakens and why some people avoid Covid

Ian Sample and Hannah Devlin discuss some of the stories that have made headlines this week, from a glimpse of a black hole awakening, to a new blood test that can detect Parkinson’s seven years before symptoms appear, and a study exploring how some people manage to avoid Covid.

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Keza MacDonald’s brilliant weekly gaming newsletter. This week Keza explored the return of the vicious online misogyny of Gamergate – if, indeed, it ever went away.

The Guardian’s crosswords and Wordiply are here to keep you entertained throughout the weekend.