Though the masked country singer has a No 1 album and duets with superstars under his belt, his demons and mental health caught up to him

Orville Peck was in the middle of a soundcheck when he found out that his idol Dolly Parton had died. It was late August and the masked, pseudonymous country singer was due to perform an intimate set at London’s Rough Trade East in half an hour. The news hit him like a truck. With no chance to process it, he decided to grieve in real time, on stage, before a roomful of fans.

“I’m a little bit of a mess right now,” Peck told the audience, perched on a stool with an acoustic guitar. “Dolly was my hero,” he continued, his voice cracking. “As a gay man coming into country music and feeling sort of alone, I think the thing that always felt comforting is, like, just knowing Dolly existed in country. It made me feel like I had a friend there.” He then launched into a rendition of Parton’s iconic hit I Will Always Love You.

She was born with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. After my decades working in film PR, I now face the biggest campaign of all: the fight for her life

My daughter Elsie has beautiful curls – blond like a little Botticelli cherub’s, hair that someone dark like me could only ever dream of. She laughs a lot, has a cheeky sense of humour and soaks in all the sounds around her – rustling leaves, the sea, a dog barking, children playing around a pool, me impersonating the alarm clock every morning, me impersonating monkeys. Indeed, me impersonating any animal.

Sound is important for Elsie because she has a visual impairment and, while we know she has some peripheral vision, is legally classed as blind. As a result, she uses her tongue to check her environment. When she’s excited it sticks out, tasting the air around her, licking anyone close, sensing space. And when she likes the taste of something she keeps her tongue out until you give her more. This is how we know she likes lollies.

I’ve seen how imbalances in campaign spending can distort democracy. The multimillion-pound gifts to Reform must act as a final wake-up call

The British people cannot be bought, but their views and votes can be heavily influenced by a flood of political party propaganda – from expensive advertising and constant leaflet drops to personalised online messages targeted directly at voters.

When I fought the election of 2010, there was a massive imbalance in spending. In 2007 we had inherited Labour party debts of £25m following the 2005 election – and with such tight finances Labour was able to spend only £8m in 2010, in contrast to the Conservatives’ £17m. We lost out in particular by being unable to invest in the new forms of online advertising coming on stream.

Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

He risks his life for entertainment, but getting an anecdote out of him is a trickier matter. Happily, Cruise is no stranger to knuckling down and pulling off the impossible

By now, we’ve grown used to watching Tom Cruise excel at everything he does. Running in films? The best. Risking his life in action scenes so preposterously dangerous that audiences need to have their sphincters manually unclenched with a crowbar? Absolutely, none better. Singlehandedly ensuring that theatrical exhibition didn’t go extinct after Covid? The man deserves all the praise in the world for that.

But nobody is perfect. Live long enough and a few flaws will worm their way to the surface. This is as true for Tom Cruise as it is for anyone else. And while I realise that this might do me out of a cake this Christmas, the following really needs to be said: Tom Cruise isn’t very good at interviews.

TUC conference rings with praise for new No 10 team, but battles loom over workers’ rights and north sea drilling

Louise Haigh, the UK first secretary, got a standing ovation from trade union members in Brighton this week, as she acknowledged what she called “the necessity to be bolder in this second chance that we’ve been allowed”.

Haigh was the stand-in at the annual TUC congress for Andy Burnham, absent because of his father’s death.

From Delhi to New York, from the street to the bath house, he has captured clandestine moments, risked his freedom – and even referenced Romantic painters. Ahead of a major show, the photographer relives his landmark shots

‘I’ve been very promiscuous,” Sunil Gupta says, reflecting on his experiments with photography since the 1970s. Gupta, who was born in India, brought up in Canada and moved to the UK in 1978 after two years studying in New York, has documented and described queer lives for five decades. In his work, he’s quietly tried to find new ways of seeing, exploring the potential of photography to blur fiction and reality, public space and intimate, clandestine moments. His work explores the ways we love and relate to one another, set against the ever-shifting tides of politics and society.

He photographs with love – but it hasn’t been without risk. An exhibition in India was once shut down by the government, and in his early days in the UK, when he was working with fellow photographer Tessa Boffin, he recalls curators “physically shrinking away when we walked in the room – two queers in leather were too much for them! But we were quite aggressively upfront with our sexualities, we weren’t shy about it.”

PM responds to criticism from former Bank of England chief economist

Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has posted this on social media ahead of Andy Burnham’s meeting with the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte later.

Today I am reminded of the words of my Labour predecessor Denis Healey:

“Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.”

[Britain] is leading, along with Nato allies, the push back against Russia’s dangerous and reckless campaign against us.

Collectively we will continue to strengthen our ability to deter and defend all allies, against any threat. Nato will not be intimidated by Russia’s campaign of hostile actions. Russia wants to stop us helping Ukraine – but their actions will only lead us to do more for Ukraine. Russia’s actions are a sign of weakness, and a symptom of Putin’s failure in Ukraine.

To stay transatlantic, Nato is becoming more European. A Nato with Europe, and Canada, spending more, producing more, and doing more for their security. This is the idea of Nato 3.0.

Building for the future. A stronger Europe, in a stronger Nato.

Samantha Shepherd faced court martial over case of 19-year-old Jaysley Beck, who had made a sexual assault claim

A senior army officer has been cleared by a court martial of failing to deal properly with allegations made by a teenage soldier who went on to kill herself.

Col Samantha Shepherd had been accused of “conduct prejudicial to good order and service discipline” over the case of 19-year-old Gunner Jaysley Beck, who took her own life in December 2021.

Commission president says EU must ‘urgently reimagine our partnerships’ as she makes unprecedented offer

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Canada has been invited to become the first “associate member” of the EU by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

In an unprecedented offer, von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the EU and Canada “see the world with the same eyes” through shared democratic values and common approaches to many big issues, from AI to climate breakdown, the Ukraine war and geopolitics.

Government announces before vote on moratorium that any projects above 50MW must submit assessments in planning process

Large-scale datacentres will face mandatory environmental assessments before they can go ahead, the Scottish government has announced, amid growing public concern about the impact of the AI boom.

Ahead of a vote on a moratorium on new hyperscale datacentres in Holyrood on Wednesday, the Scottish government has tightened rules for new projects by requiring any above 50MW to submit environmental impact assessments, but stopped short of agreeing to an outright halt.