Britain’s spooks take quiet satisfaction from survey ranking Secret Intelligence Service Europe’s top espionage agency

MI6 has the swagger of James Bond; its French equivalent, DGSE, the complexities of the television drama Le Bureau. The film and TV shows may be fictional, but a survey run by a French magazine that placed the British spy agency above the French as No 1 across all of Europe this week is not.

L’Express, a news weekly, conducted a Eurovision-style poll of 60 current and former spies from across the continent, plus the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. Each was asked to rank their top five foreign intelligence agencies, in secret, naturally enough. MI6 was first with 251 points ahead of DGSE on 169, with other agencies trailing behind.

Ever the strategist, the Chinese leader is taking the offensive, both abroad and at home. That’s bad news for global order, and minorities in his country

Imagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet that’s exactly what Xi Jinping, China’s communist emperor, is telling the roughly 125 million members of the 55 ethnic and religious minorities who together comprise about 9% of the country’s (majority Han Chinese) population.

Xi claims his sinicisation policy, embodied in a new “ethnic unity” law, will boost national identity and integration and, by expanding compulsory use of the Mandarin language, improve life and work prospects. Minorities should “hug tightly like pomegranate seeds” to build a strong, united China, he says. But Tibetans, Mongolians, Uyghurs and others who value their separate language and customs fiercely object to what they see as forced assimilation into a conformist, intolerant monoculture dominated by the Communist party’s tunnel vision. For them, it’s ethnic cleansing by another name.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

I wish I could say that expressing concern for the pop star’s health is helpful – but I know from experience it’s not that simple

The last time I opened X, a photo of Ariana Grande leaning over in a low-cut black dress, clavicle showing, was at the top of the feed. The post read: “hey @grok make Ariana Grande healthy and fat”.

Images of celebrities at their most skeletal regularly rise to the top of social feeds because they generate enormous, dissenting engagement. Social media platforms have made half-hearted efforts to suppress explicit pro-eating disorder content; Instagram and TikTok redirect searches for “thinspo” toward support resources. Yet over the past couple weeks, Grande has sent users into a frenzy that outstrips the platforms’ attempts.

Education is at a crossroads, argues the author and academic. Should we embrace new technology in the name of efficiency, or is it time to fight back?

If you set out to design from scratch a tool to facilitate authoritarian rule, it would look exactly like AI. You would cherish it for its ability to destabilise our shared reality and its creation of disinformation on a scale unprecedented in human history. With it you need no armies of typists and artists to spread your propaganda. It can enable mass surveillance and thereby put shackles on those who seek to resist you. Its lethal autonomous weapons systems can perfect and normalise remote killing. It will turbocharge inequality; it is already facilitating a breathtaking shift of power and wealth from the hands of the many to the hands of a tiny number of men who – to put it in terms for which I can’t be sued – seem to hold dangerously damaged views about the value and dignity of human life.

AI could be a magnificent thing. It could revolutionise medicine, speed the cure of cancer, assist disabled people, transform the way we are able to understand data, democratise access to the law, bolster disaster early warning systems and uncover hitherto unimagined truths about the Earth’s ecosystems. But if it ends up in the hands of crooks and despots that will be completely irrelevant.

Figures show most leasehold flats in England do not find a buyer within six months, despite slashed prices

‘The market is dead for flats,” says Susan Young*, who has been trying for some time without success to sell her two-bed flat in a popular Devon seaside resort.

The first-floor property is in “immaculate condition”, Young says, thanks to the £15,000-£20,000 spent on renovations. It has “superb views” across the beach. And, perhaps most crucially, it is a freehold flat, so is untainted by the controversies associated with the discredited leasehold system.

A horrific knife attack on a street in June sparked another summer’s night of racial violence, stoked by loyalist groups. How did the unrest erupt – and why do many fear it will happen again?

Shortly after 10.30pm on Monday 8 June, as a summer twilight lingered over Belfast, a horrific scene unfolded on Kinnaird Avenue: a man straddled and repeatedly stabbed a figure lying on the ground in a bloody assault that ended only after onlookers intervened.

Others captured the drama on cameraphones and uploaded the footage to social media. Once seen, the grainy images were hard to forget, and by dawn on Tuesday 9 June they were ricocheting around X, WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram and other platforms.

Asked whether he targeted reporter who investigated party finances, Brexit campaigner says: ‘When you live by the sword, you die by the sword’

The prominent Reform UK member and Brexit campaigner Arron Banks is said to have set private investigators on a Sunday Times journalist after he broke a series of stories about Nigel Farage.

Banks is alleged to have paid for the services of investigators to examine Gabriel Pogrund, editor of the paper’s Insight investigations team.

Documents published on US embassy’s website prompt claims of attempt to export Maga propaganda to UK

The US embassy in London is offering grants of up to half a million dollars for new “public education” programmes in what has been criticised as interference in British domestic politics.

Using language that the pro-Trump Maga movement has sought to appropriate, a funding notice identifies a goal of fostering a “national conversation” about “shared civilizational values” underpinning US-UK ties. Priority will go to applicants aiming to celebrate “freedom of speech” and “limited government”.

Watchdog examines handling of an incident last year that was treated as an attempted burglary

Counter-terrorism police investigating the death of Ann Widdecombe have reopened an inquiry into an incident last year, in which Nigel Farage’s home was allegedly firebombed.

During the incident in April 2025, a lit incendiary device was pushed through the Reform UK leader’s letterbox, according to reports.

Drought and record heat have forced the Norfolk and Suffolk league to move kick-off to the end of August as the ground is deemed too dangerous to play on

This summer’s record drought has forced a football league to delay the start of its season because “rock hard” pitches are a danger to its players.

The 2026/27 season in the Anglian Combination League of 85 amateur teams in Norfolk and Suffolk was due to start next weekend.