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Judging by his time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boehly will sanction big spending as long as he sees even bigger returnsA billionaire completes a spectacular takeover of one of the world’s most cherished sporting institutions and immediately goes on a lavish, jawbone-loosening spending spree. New signings pile up like presents under the Christmas tree. Debts spiral into the hundreds of millions, piquing the ire and envy of their rivals. But on its own terms, it works: success is duly bought, the people placated, the sport gently bent to its will.This is the story of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team under Todd Boehly and his business partners and, for all the sense of cataclysm and upheaval surrounding Chelsea of late, what is most striking of all is what hasn’t changed. Results on the pitch have largely been maintained: the same players and the same coach playing roughly the same level of football in front of roughly the same people. Third place and Champions League football next season were secured. And now one ambitious tycoon has simply been replaced by another. Continue reading...

The ex-president’s losses helps GOP members create the illusion of moving on, even as they continue to push radical rightwing agendaDonald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe.The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor. Continue reading...

Joe Biden has asked Americans to stand up to the gun lobby and pass sensible gun laws after at least 19 children and two adults were killed in a Texas school shooting on Tuesday. 'As a nation we have to ask, when in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God's name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?' he said. Authorities said an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde before he was reportedly killed by responding officers

Races from Georgia to Texas were a litmus test of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party with some significant lossesBrian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, defeated former Senator David Perdue, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. Perdue’s loss marked a significant defeat for Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker in the Republican party, as the former president has used the power of his endorsement to wield influence over candidates and lawmakers. Continue reading...

Bereaved say it is ‘beyond time to take action’ on gun control in the wake of the killing of 19 children in Texas

The secretary of state had been excoriated by many in the GOP for refusing to help overturn the 2020 electionBrad Raffensperger defeated congressman Jody Hice on Tuesday in a closely watched Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state, a significant victory for a politician who has been scorned by his own party for refusing Donald Trump’s request to overturn the 2020 election.In a surprise, Raffensperger avoided a runoff and won an outright victory over Hice, getting more than 50% of the vote, according to the election monitoring website Decision Desk HQ. The race was called by the Associated Press and other outlets late on Tuesday night. Continue reading...

The poet, who performed at the inauguration of Joe Biden, says to ‘do nothing isn’t just insanity – it’s inhumanity’

A gunman who opened fire at anelementary school in Texas has killedat least 19 children and two adults. Texas governor Greg Abbott saidthe suspected gunman was an18-year-old man named Salvador Romas. The shooter died at the scene,reportedly killed by the policeresponding to the incident

Lawmakers and gun control groups lead calls to stop the carnage: ‘it is our choice to let it continue’The second US mass shooting in 10 days, which left 18 young children and three adults dead at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday, led to an outpouring of disbelief and potent rage at America’s persistent failure to tackle its epidemic of gun violence.Tuesday’s horrifying attack in Uvalde, a small, largely Hispanic community outside San Antonio, came just 10 days after the events in Buffalo, New York. There 10 grocery shoppers, most of them African American, were gunned down in a supermarket. Continue reading...

Elections will test Trump’s enduring hold over Republican party while a progressive tries to unseat a Democratic centrist in TexasIt is election night in America as a swath of primary races take place in states ranging from Georgia to Texas to Alabama.Here are some important races to watch out for: Continue reading...

Police had tweeted photo of Andrew Abdullah, 25, in connection with killing of Daniel Enriquez on SundayA man wanted in an apparently unprovoked fatal shooting on a New York City subway train surrendered to police on Tuesday, hours after authorities posted his name and photo on social media and implored the public to help find him.Andrew Abdullah, 25, turned himself in at a Manhattan precinct to face charges in the death of 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez. Continue reading...

Bureau says in warrant that Ohio man Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab planned assassination out of revenge for Iraq warThe FBI claims an Islamic State sympathizer living in Ohio plotted to assassinate George W Bush, but confidential informants helped federal agents foil the plan, according to court records.Details of the alleged scheme to kill the former president are laid out in a warrant that the FBI obtained in March to search the accused operative’s cellphone records, a 43-page document that was only unsealed in recent days. Continue reading...

Company also indicates it will plead guilty to bribery counts in UK in relation to oil operations in AfricaThe commodities trading giant Glencore will pay a $1bn (£800m) US settlement and has indicated it will plead guilty to seven counts of bribery in the UK related to its oil operations in Africa.Glencore, a member of the FTSE 100 index of Britain’s biggest public companies, said it would pay penalties of $700m to resolve US bribery investigations and $485m to resolve market manipulation investigations, with some reductions in anticipation of settlements in other countries. Continue reading...

Heard has met threshold for case to continue, judge rules a day before Moss, Depp’s ex-girlfriend, is to be called as a witnessThe judge in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial has rejected an effort by Depp’s lawyers to dismiss Heard’s $100m counter-suit against the actor, a day before the British supermodel Kate Moss is expected to testify followed by a final return of Depp to the stand.Depp’s attorneys, who are rebutting after Heard’s lawyers rested their case on Monday, had argued that Heard failed to prove any “actual malice” had occurred when Depp’s former PR person Adam Waldman told the Daily Mail she had created an “abuse hoax”. Continue reading...

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ended his career in a dramatic defeat to Casper Ruud, while there were also wins for Medvedev and PliskovaHang on, Bagnis sends a forehand down the line and he has won a game! 4-1 down in the second set, the comeback is on!Bagnis is not moving well at all. This is turning into something of a procession for Medvedev, who has won the last eight games. He’s 6-2, 4-0 up. Bagnis is limping, but appears determined to pick up his prize money! The Argentinian can barely get off the ground when serving. Continue reading...

Former senior counselor to Donald Trump says president was ‘too trusting of others who lacked transparency or talent’In her new memoir, Kellyanne Conway lavishes abuse on Steve Bannon, calling the former White House strategist a “leaking dirigible” and an “unpaternal, paternalistic bore of a boor” more concerned with his own image than serving Donald Trump.But in doing so, the former senior counselor to the ex-US president criticises Trump himself, otherwise a notable escapee from her book. Continue reading...

City once had more than 6,000 public telephones but march of technology has led to replacement with wifi kiosksNew York City removed its last public payphone this week, discontinuing a relic from a more analog time.On Monday municipal officials removed the last remaining city-owned payphone, located in the Midtown area. New York City began ditching its payphones in 2015, with officials citing a need for digital innovation. Continue reading...

Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, wanted by authorities after Anna Moriah Wilson, 25, found dead in Texas just days before bike raceA Texas woman is allegedly on the run from accusations of murdering a professional cyclist amid a love triangle involving another professional cyclist.Anna Moriah Wilson, 25, was found dead in the bathroom of a home where she was staying in Austin, on 11 May. Just three days before she was supposed to participate in a 150-mile bike race in Hico, Texas, she was bleeding from numerous gunshot wounds, and empty bullet casings surrounded her, according to police records. Continue reading...

Decolonising the curriculum doesn’t mean losing traditional texts, but studying the power imbalances my pupils already experienceApparently Shakespeare is the latest victim of the culture wars, with some fearing the Bard is about to be thrown out of classrooms across England in the name of decolonisation. Wokeness has already culled the dead white man from American curriculums, we are told, so surely it won’t be long until we follow suit. Right?But the inconvenient truth – which isn’t quite so headline-worthy – is that decolonising the curriculum isn’t about burning copies of Macbeth, or chucking Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations in the bin. It’s not even about only studying writers from marginalised identities. As a mixed-race English teacher who believes strongly in diversifying the English syllabus, for me, it’s about re-examining the lens through which we view canonical texts in the first place – shifting it to become more critical, more aware of the systemic forces at play both within and around a text. Decolonisation may sound radical, frightening even to some, but this is what great English teaching already does.Nadeine Asbali is a secondary school teacher in London

Modular home left abandoned in street after dead-of-night move damaged mailboxes road signs and treesTwo men attempted to illegally move a modular home in Louisiana in the middle of the night before they abandoned the house in the street and left a trail of havoc in their neighborhood, the local sheriff reported.Sheriff’s deputies in the state’s Iberia parish, near Lafayette, jailed the pair after getting a call at 3.30am on Sunday to report an illegal transport of a house. “Deputies arrived to find an abandoned truck, trailer and house,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on its Facebook page. Continue reading...

Stronger-than-expected showing in elections has energized the movement and set the stage, they hope, for more successesIn the battle for control of the Democratic party, progressives are increasingly confident they are winning. That’s how they explain the record sums of Super Pac money targeting their candidates in nominating contests for safely Democratic seats.“There’s a set of people who are uncomfortable with a new brand of politics,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the progressive Working Families party. “They’re trying to set the clock back. But the genie’s outta the bottle.” Continue reading...

A Tory MP has demanded to know: ‘Was the Met weak, gullible, incompetent or stupid?’ The answer is yes – on all countsNaturally, you’ll adore the pictures of Boris Johnson raising a glass at a Downing Street party during lockdown. It’s like a Holbein or something, depicting a corpulent man surrounded by all the esoteric accoutrements of state power: the red box, the Barefoot pinot grigio. The Sourz Apple. Just out of shot? Either an astrolabe, or the booze suitcase.Furthermore, you have to respect how the Metropolitan police get to the bottom of nothing except the barrel. It’s truly inspirational to think their £460,000 “Partygate” performance piece has not yet reached its final form. That will come as early as today, when a number of the officers tasked with not spotting Boris Johnson in a series of piss-up photos get signed off with stress. Only when they’ve been on the sick for two years, then retired with a full pension but also returned to a high-paying station desk job, will Partygate have attained the British establishment gold standard.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Trump lawyer testified to panel Friday but declined to discuss involvement of Republicans in bid to overturn electionDonald Trump’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack at length on Friday but declined to discuss the involvement of congressional Republicans in efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to sources familiar with the matter.The move by Giuliani to refuse to give insight into Republican involvement could mean his appearance only marginally advanced the inquiry into his ploy to have the then vice-president, Mike Pence, unlawfully keep Trump in office after he lost to Joe Biden. Continue reading...

Russia’s foreign minister says Moscow will depend only on ‘reliable’ countries. Plus, what we have got wrong about sleepGood morning.Russia’s foreign minister has said Moscow will focus on developing relations with China, though would consider offers from the west to re-establish ties.How has the Guardian documented Russia’s use of illegal weapons? Cluster bombs, flechettes and unguided missiles on residential areas: as prosecutors investigate alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, our reporters reveal the evidence they discovered on the ground.What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 90 of the invasion.Has there been any change to the US policy on Taiwan? Biden was asked this after a round of Quad talks. “No. The policy has not changed at all,” he said. “I stated that when I made my statement yesterday.” Continue reading...

NHS doctors were grateful to the public who followed Covid rules. The PM’s glass of wine has been thrown in all our facesNine in the room, if you include the photographer. Eight glasses held high, a table strewn with bottles. Not a mask to be seen, not a hint of social distancing. They’re standing mere breaths apart. And there, holding court, centre stage – all grins and clownish mop of hair and crumpled, easy swagger – is Boris, good old Boris. Knees up, guard down, clearly raising a toast in a room full of alcohol. It all looks so very jolly.Only at a second glance do you notice the red box that sits askew upon a chair, slung there like an afterthought. Then, in the foreground, a further revelation. As if designed to mock, tucked away between the bottles is that icon of the Covid age – a plastic pump dispenser of hand sanitiser. And how absurd it looks, how silly, this token nod towards curtailing infection amid the booze and grins and genial dissolution of another night of No 10 flicking the finger to the nation.Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of PandemicDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

US conservatives are signaling their commitment to authoritarianism loud and clear by holding this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest – the first-ever outside the USIn political analysis, sometimes the hardest thing is to see what’s staring you right in the face. Putin put in writing what he was going to do this spring – we just could not believe it, or we thought we’d prove our savviness by identifying some completely counterintuitive twist to the story of an invasion foretold. A similar challenge is posed by American conservatives communicating their commitment to authoritarianism loud and clear by holding this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in Budapest – the first ever outside the US: the autocratic leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, is the main attraction, with plenty of European far-right party leaders as supporting acts. Could these American ingenues abroad just be duped by a leader intent on selling his kleptocratic autocracy as the last bastion of authentic conservatism or, as he likes to put it, real “Christian Democracy”? Maybe there’s some twist? Or perhaps, as Cpac’s hero Trump once proclaimed, it is what it is: from Tucker Carlson down, these figures are aware that Hungary has exited the democratic world; they just repeat the Orbán regime’s talking points when confronted with evidence for it. They end up cheerfully endorsing Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe.Orbán has long tried to promote his regime internationally as a model of “illiberal democracy.” The idea is that the leader enjoys overwhelming support from the people, while implementing a decidedly anti-liberal agenda in matters of immigration and social policy: rewarding people financially for procreation, legally cementing traditional notions of marriage and affirming the supreme value of the nation-state against “globalists” allegedly “opening all borders.” Such a stance has resonated with conservatives who felt that the right kept suffering endless culture war defeats in western Europe and North America; the ideology espoused by the self-proclaimed “plebeian” Orbán has also provided a template for a newly fashioned “national conservatism” that seeks to combine nationalism with state intervention in economy and morality.Jan-Werner Mueller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules Continue reading...

The ‘huge grinding uptick’ is about Covid stress – but also, I suspect, the specific stress of parenting during a pandemicDreams about your teeth falling out, among the most horrifying and universal we have, probably indicate a fear of losing control or power in a given situation – at least according to Carl Jung and centuries of dream interpreters. I’m not sure if this means that adding teeth to one’s household can be viewed as a sign of resilience and order, but it’s something I’ve been telling myself, however apocryphally, in the wee hours of the morning when I’m rocking my miserable, teething baby to sleep in a dark room, or plying my kindergartner with various chewy implements to scratch the itch of her six-year-old molars coming through.“Mama, look, I can see a little nub there,” she says at bath time, opening her mouth comically wide and tilting her head at the mirror, her younger sister helpfully shining a small flashlight up her nostril.Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age Continue reading...

Violence rocked a community already shook by years of rising hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific IslandersWhen Ho Chie Tsai learned that a gunman had targeted the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian church in southern California, he knew it was only a matter of time before the effects of the tragedy reached him.The Taiwanese American community is close-knit and, despite living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the pediatrician soon learned of friends and family who had connections to the church where a where a man opened fire on elderly worshipers, injuring five people and killing one before parishioners overtook him. Continue reading...

There have been several high-profile confrontations between fans and players in recent months. Some believe a deeper unrest is behind such incidentsAs April drew to a close, Cleveland Guardians outfielders had to deal with a few unusual problems during their team’s visit to Yankee Stadium. But it wasn’t flyballs caught in the swirling winds over the Bronx, or the power of sluggers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge that were unsettling them. Instead, they found themselves pelted with garbage by fans. Cleveland right fielder Oscar Mercado’s most significant catch of the game was intercepting a beer can that had been thrown at his head. The situation became so bad that at one point Judge and Stanton had to jog over to placate their own fans.“Brutal,” Guardians outfielder Myles Straw said after the game. “Worst fanbase on the planet.” Continue reading...

Leaders of US, India, Japan and Australia meet in Tokyo for Quad summit Beijing claims is an attempt to contain ChinaThe turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underlined the need for a free Indo-Pacific region, Joe Biden has said at a meeting with regional partners that Beijing has condemned as part of a US-led attempt to contain China.Biden and the leaders of a loose alliance known as the Quad – India, Japan and Australia – reaffirmed their commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific during talks in Tokyo on Tuesday. The comments came one day after the US president said Washington would be ready to intervene militarily to defend Taiwan, prompting China to accuse him of “playing with fire”. Continue reading...

Mallory McMorrow’s riposte to a hurtful slander by a colleague in the Michigan state senate that she wanted to ‘groom’ children went viral and has been hailed as a midterms blueprint for DemocratsMallory McMorrow remembers the sting of being slandered by a colleague for wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” young children. “I felt horrible,” she says. But instead of shrugging it off or trying to change the subject, as Democrats are often criticised for doing, the state senator from Michigan decided to fight back.In just four minutes and 40 seconds, McMorrow delivered a fierce, impassioned floor speech at the state capitol that went viral on social media and earned a laudatory phone call from the US president. Continue reading...

A surgeon who has testified in the defamation trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard says Depp's claim that he lost the tip of his finger during a domestic fight with Heard could not have happened in the way he recounted.Speaking at the court in Fairfax county, Virginia, Richard Moore said Depp’s description was unlikely, in large part because his fingernail remained intact. Moore, who did not treat Depp, said the fingernail was exposed – as Depp described the palm-down placement of his hand – and would have been damaged

Matthew Ryan Miller from Maryland draped himself in a far right-affiliated flag and used a barricade as a ladder to scale wallsA Maryland man who draped himself in a far right-affiliated flag and sprayed a fire extinguisher at police during the deadly Capitol attack on January 6 has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison, according to federal court records.Matthew Ryan Miller, 23, pleaded guilty in February to felony obstruction of an official proceeding – that day’s joint congressional session to certify Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election – as well as assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers. Continue reading...

Rhona Graff will be questioned about the former president’s involvement in the Trump Organization’s financial recordsThe New York attorney general’s office has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s longtime executive assistant and plans to question her under oath next week as part of its civil investigation into the former president’s business dealings.The subpoena for Rhona Graff was disclosed by a lawyer for the attorney general Letitia James’ office in court papers opposing Trump’s latest bid to rid himself of a contempt of court order for being slow to respond to a subpoena for documents and other evidence. Continue reading...

Richard Moore says he is sceptical of claim that Depp injured finger during Amber Heard fight, as defamation trial enters final weekThe defamation trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard entered its fifth and final week of testimony on Monday, with a witness for Heard testifying that Depp could not have lost the tip of his finger during a domestic fight in the way he had recounted.The serious injury to his middle finger, which occurred during a March 2015 row in Australia between Depp and Heard during their brief marriage, has been one of several key points of dispute in the civil case. Continue reading...

Stores remain low on supplies but flight brings enough to fill half a million bottles for children with allergiesStore shelves across the US remain short of baby formula after a military plane carrying enough to fill half a million baby bottles arrived in the US on Sunday but its contents were rushed to health system outlets to feed babies with specific allergies.The first of several such flights from Europe, aimed at relieving a nationwide shortage that has sent parents scrambling to find enough to feed their infants, was packed with specialty hypoallergenic formula to be distributed through channels such as hospitals, doctors’ officers and pharmacies, for babies intolerant of the protein in cow’s milk. Continue reading...

Decision bars federal courts from hearing new evidence not presented in a state court as a result of ineffective legal counselThe US supreme court on Monday gutted constitutional protections that for years have provided a federal lifeline to innocent prisoners facing prolonged incarceration or even execution following wrongful convictions stemming from poor legal counsel given to them by the states.In a 6 to 3 ruling, the newly-dominant rightwing majority of the nation’s highest court barred federal courts from hearing new evidence that was not previously presented in a state court as a result of the defendant’s ineffective legal representation. Continue reading...

Eric Adams under renewed pressure to reassure city after man was shot and killed as he rode Q train over Manhattan BridgeThe fledgling mayor of New York, Eric Adams, is facing renewed pressure to reassure jittery New Yorkers over the safety of the city’s subway service after an apparently random shooting on a train crossing over the Manhattan Bridge killed a rider.Daniel Enriquez, 48, a Goldman Sachs investment researcher, was shot once in the chest at about 11.42am on Sunday as he rode a Q-line train over the East River from his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, into Manhattan, to have brunch. Continue reading...

President warns inflation is ‘going to be a haul’ as poll finds 77% of Americans ‘pessimistic’ about cost of goods and services in coming months• US would defend Taiwan if attacked by China, says Joe Biden• Capitol attack panel to hold six public hearings• Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by emailUS Senator Jeff Merkley has announced he has contracted the coronavirus. The Oregon Democrat attributed the mildness of his current symptoms to the fact that he is fully vaccinated and boosted.He urged everyone in the US to get similarly protected and warned, on Twitter: “Covid is still among us.” Continue reading...

The playoff winner at Southern Hills credits Phil Mickelson’s former caddie for motivating him to fight back on day fourIt remains unclear whether Phil Mickelson will emerge from exile when Greg Norman and his Saudi Arabian circus rumbles into Hertfordshire next month. Mickelson presumably has enough on his mind without contemplating the bitter irony of events at Southern Hills on Sunday. Nonetheless, to others it was striking that as Mickelson – the defending champion – sat at home in San Diego, a man once key to his success was instrumental in Justin Thomas claiming a second US PGA Championship.Relations between Mickelson and Jim “Bones” Mackay are understood to be non-existent despite 25 years of professional association. Mackay was on the bag as Mickelson won five of his six major championships. Having stepped back from bag‑carrying duties and while working in television, Mackay decided privately that the only player for whom he would return to the game was Thomas. The call arrived last September; eight months on, Thomas has doubled his tally of major victories. “I think he has more shots than anyone on tour,” Mackay says of his employer. Continue reading...

President’s blunt response appears to undercut US ‘strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan as White House forced to walk back remarksThe somewhat routine press conference in Tokyo was winding down when the question came. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”Many past American presidents would have deflected, demurred, declined to give a straight answer. Not Joe Biden. “Yes,” he replied bluntly, adding: “That’s the commitment we made.” Continue reading...

Bull at Redding rodeo in northern California runs through crowd of spectators and across parking lot before being capturedSeveral people were injured when a bull jumped a fence and escaped an arena during a popular northern California rodeo, authorities said.The escape occurred on Friday during the final section of the Redding Rodeo’s bull riding event, the Redding Rodeo Association said on Facebook. Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s one-time lawyer Rudy Giuliani hurled profanities at a person attending a parade in New York City, calling him a jackass and saying: 'You are probably as demented as Biden.'

The ousting of shameless culture warrior Scott Morrison, and his defeat in wealthy heartlands, should send a shiver down Tory spinesPopulists can be beaten. There was a time not long ago when few could type that sentence with confidence, so the outcome of Australia’s recent elections will leave many progressives battling with the still unfamiliar sensation of victory.Scott Morrison, the now ousted rightwing prime minister dubbed Australia’s first “post-truth” leader, was never quite a Trumpian. But he was a shameless culture warrior presiding over a bungled Covid response and ensuing recession, plus a clumsy response to high-profile sexual misconduct allegations against parliamentary colleagues. He dragged his feet on the climate crisis even as apocalyptic floods, fires and droughts were convincing Australians that something had to change, and holidayed in Hawaii as wildfires raged at home. His opponent, Labor’s Anthony Albanese, was not exactly overburdened with charisma and the progressive vote eventually split between Labor, the Greens and the so-called teal independents, an exasperated army of mainly female candidates pledging to clean up politics and tackle the climate. But the cautious Albanese and his mantra of “safe change” – nothing too big or scarily radical – still made it over the line, having seemingly learned from a previous Labor defeat blamed on an over-ambitious manifesto. If any of this sounds uncannily familiar to British readers, then it’s easy to see why Keir Starmer’s Labour party (and indeed the Greens) might suddenly have their tails up.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...