Milestone reached as journalists including Polly Toynbee and John Crace prepare for fundraising event on Saturday

• Call 0203 353 4368 to donate via the telethon

• You can also donate to our charity appeal here

The first week of the Guardian’s Hope appeal has raised more than £200,000 for grassroots charities doing inspiring work to bring divided communities together, promoting tolerance and positive change, and opposing racism and hate.

The milestone was reached before the annual fundraising telethon on Saturday. Journalists preparing to take donations over the phone include Polly Toynbee, John Crace, Jonathan Liew, Patrick Wintour and Simon Hattenstone.

From Judi Dench’s very naughty tea with Kenneth Branagh to the Peep Show Bake Off special – including Olivia Colman! – here’s your definitive guide to the best holiday viewing. Bring it on

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Colm Tóibín, Robert Macfarlane, Elif Shafak, Michael Rosen and more share the novels, poetry and memoirs that make the perfect gift

I love giving books as presents. I rarely give anything else. I strongly approve of the Icelandic tradition of the Jólabókaflóðið (Yule book flood), whereby books are given (and, crucially, read) on Christmas Eve. Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain is the one I’ve given more often than any other; so much so that I keep a stack of four or five to hand, ready to give at Christmas or any other time of the year. It’s a slender masterpiece – a meditation on Shepherd’s lifelong relationship with the Cairngorm mountains, which was written in the 1940s but not published until 1977. It’s “about the Cairngorms” in the sense that Mrs Dalloway is “about London”; which is to say, it is both intensely engaged with its specific setting, and gyring outwards to vaster questions of knowledge, existence and – a word Shepherd uses sparingly but tellingly – love.

Women’s football is booming – but the bigger it’s got, the messier it’s become for players. Through it all, the hot tip for Sports Personality of the Year has kept a cool head

At the end of last year, Chloe Kelly was seriously considering stepping away from football. She was deeply unhappy at Manchester City, her team since 2020, where it seemed as if they wouldn’t let her play, nor let her leave. She wasn’t getting enough time on the pitch, so wasn’t sure that she would be selected for England, who were preparing to defend the title she had helped win in 2022 in the Euros tournament. She was 26, about to turn 27. She had been a professional footballer since she was 18, but her mother was starting to get concerned. She desperately wanted her daughter to be happy again. “I remember my mum coming up to see me and she was meant to go home, but she didn’t go home, because she was so worried,” recalls Kelly.

Less than a year later, and things are very different. At the time of writing, Kelly is favourite to win Sports Personality of the Year after a history-making comeback. At the end of January, she was loaned to Arsenal and in May she lifted the Champions League trophy with the team, very much the underdogs in the final against Barcelona, whom they defeated 1-0. At the end of July, she scored that penalty for England, securing them a second Euros title, against arch-rivals Spain. She was fifth in the Ballon D’or Féminin, and named in the Fifpro World 11 squad for the first time – a peer-voted list of the best footballers in the world. Against the odds, then, 2025 has turned out to be a great year. “For sure,” Kelly smiles. “To bounce back, that’s what makes it the best year of my career.”

Nigel Farage’s party is gunning for power – so what is it like in the places where they’ve already got it? We embedded with Lancashire county council to find out what happens when rhetoric meets reality

22 May 2025: a new dawn for Lancashire. Outside Preston’s grand old county hall, 53 brand new Reform UK councillors in turquoise ties – and one petite woman with an enormous turquoise hair bow – are hot-footing it past a gaggle of protesters for their first full council meeting. Most keep their heads down and get into the building as quickly as possible. But Joel Tetlow, a first-time politician who has made a few unfortunate headlines before even taking his seat, is intrigued. He stands in the doorway, vaping, as a demonstrator bellows: “Reform is a far right party and Nigel Farage is a racist and a fascist!”

Tetlow – late 40s with a full head of vertiginous hair, wearing a powder-blue three-piece suit – insists he isn’t bothered. “They don’t know us as people,” he shrugs. “It’s a word that’s slung around now so much, to be a racist. You know, what is it to be a racist? All we want to do is stand for our country, look after the people within it. So we’re not racist. None of us are racist.” (Farage, too, has denied accusations of racism, and Reform dispute that they are a far right party.)

From pie-and-mash to the swank of a Michelin star, everyone has their own idea of what’s ‘best’. What’s yours?

• Jonathan Nunn is the author of London Feeds Itself

Almost 24 years ago, a small British food magazine called Restaurant assembled an all-star panel – made up of Gordon Ramsay, John Torode, Aldo Zilli and 65 other food guys – to adjudicate on the world’s most stupid question: what is the best restaurant on the planet? It didn’t matter that no judge had been to all the restaurants on the shortlist, or that two of the judges happened to be Jeremy Clarkson and Roger Moore – what the editors of Restaurant understood is that people love a list, and if you order a group of restaurants from 50-1 and throw a party, people might take it seriously.

“This could run and run,” the editors wrote in their intro, half hoping. They were right. Within two decades, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants had gone from what critic Jay Rayner described as a “terribly successful marketing exercise” to an insurgent alternative to the ossified Michelin Guide, solidifying the reputations of El Bulli, the Fat Duck and then Noma as the “world’s best restaurant”.

Jonathan Nunn is a food and city writer based in London who co-edits the magazine Vittles. He is the author of London Feeds Itself

Release of 43-second video comes as senior church figures speak out against dangers of Christian nationalism

The Church of England has released a video in response to a Christmas carols event on Saturday being organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson amid calls from a growing number of senior church figures to challenge Christian nationalism.

In the 43-second video, Christmas Isn’t Cancelled, posted on the church’s YouTube channel, more than 20 people from the archbishop of York to schoolchildren speak about the “joy, love and hope” of Christmas. The message is “a simple reminder that Christmas belongs to all of us, and everyone is welcome to celebrate”, the C of E said.

Exclusive: A trio of candidates have been interviewed by the PM, but he could still decide to directly appoint someone else

Keir Starmer is poised to choose a new ambassador to Washington from a shortlist of three as relations with the US are tested over Ukraine and Donald Trump’s attacks on European leaders.

The prime minister held interviews with three finalists for the role this week, the Guardian has learned, with Downing Street preparing to make an appointment before the end of the year.

Rate rises by 19% compared with 2020, prompting fresh concerns about NHS maternity care

The risk of women in England suffering severe bleeding after giving birth has risen to its highest level for five years, prompting fresh concern about NHS maternity care.

The rate at which mothers in England experience postpartum haemorrhage has increased from 27 per 1,000 births in 2020 to 32 per 1,000 this year, a rise of 19%.

• Argentinian makes 20-minute appearance in Kolkata

• Supporters climb fence and hurl objects from stands

Lionel Messi’s tour of India kicked off on a chaotic note on Saturday as fans ripped up seats and threw them towards the pitch after the Argentina and Inter Miami forward’s brief visit to the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, the ANI news agency reported.

Messi is in India as part of a tour during which he is scheduled to attend concerts, youth football clinics and a padel tournament, and launch charitable initiatives at events in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.