The climate emergency should have been a more prominent theme during an underwhelming election campaign

For all the many televised encounters between party leaders, one huge subject has largely flown under the radar during this underwhelming election campaign. In 2019, at a time when the Brexit crisis had overwhelmed national politics, Channel 4 nevertheless devoted an entire pre-election debate to the climate emergency. Boris Johnson didn’t turn up. But, sensing the mood of the times, as prime minister he was soon committing to a “green industrial revolution”. Climate action was high-profile and it mattered.

Contrast that with last week’s final leaders’ debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. None of the questions selected from the audience addressed the environment. Aside from one attempt by Mr Sunak to suggest that Labour’s green plans will lead to higher taxes – feeding into the Conservative party’s wider attack strategy – both leaders focused their energy and political capital elsewhere. It has been much the same throughout the campaign. Economists, industrial leaders and environmental campaigners are united in their desire for more proactive green government. But the politics has become difficult.

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From the Marx Brothers to Albert Camus and Claire Keegan, concise storytelling can get to the heart of the matter

What role do the arts have at a time of political change when little is certain except for a vast spillage of words? One answer is: to be succinct, entertaining and enduringly truthful. Fortunately, this is within easy reach in a wide range of disciplines. Take the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, which looks more satirically prescient with every passing year.

In 68 sublimely funny minutes, the 1933 comedy portrays two countries spiralling into war via a dirty tricks campaign waged by spies sent from one state to discredit the newly elected puppet president of its philanthrocapitalist neighbour. Even to themselves, everyone involved looks the same, as demonstrated in its famous mirror scene. All any of them really wants is to get rich.

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Sunday’s first round vote puts Marine Le Pen’s radical right within touching distance of power. The priority must now be damage limitation

If Emmanuel Macron still harboured hopes that his decision to gift Marine Le Pen a snap parliamentary election would pay off, they are surely dispelled now. Following humiliation in last month’s European polls, Mr Macron recklessly gambled that historic levels of support for Ms Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) would melt away once protest voters were confronted with the prospect of a radical right government for the first time in postwar history. So how did that work out?

A high turnout in Sunday’s first round saw RN comfortably win first place with 33.1% of the vote, almost two points up compared with three weeks ago. For context, this is the first time that the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen has broken through the 20% barrier in a legislative election. The hastily assembled New Popular Front (NPF), combining the forces of the left, scored 28%. Mr Macron’s centrist Together coalition trailed in at 20.8%, in third place. In an act of hubristic folly, Mr Macron thus appears to have blown up his power base in parliament, transformed himself into the lamest of lame duck presidents, and handed Ms Le Pen’s youthful protege, Jordan Bardella, a decent chance of becoming France’s next prime minister.

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Deep cuts to council budgets have hit teenagers hard. New opportunities to play and socialise would help them to flourish

Ever since the first ones were set up by philanthropists, youth clubs have sought to provide children with experiences not available to them elsewhere. The Waifs’ Rescue Agency and Street Vendors’ Club, which opened in Sunderland in 1902, was one of the pioneers. From its earliest days, competing ideas about what kind of service to offer had to be negotiated. Was the point to rescue and reform young people at risk of getting into trouble? Or to create opportunities for recreation and support for those unlikely to find them otherwise?

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party sees crime prevention as the priority. It has promised a Young Futures programme, modelled on New Labour’s Sure Start, as a way to reduce knife crime. After 14 years in which youth services endured some of the harshest cuts of any public service, and with concerns about young people’s social and emotionalwellbeing running high, any pledge to invest in teenagers is welcome. But the results of a survey by the National Youth Agency are a reminder that, while youth services can play a role in supporting young people at risk from violence, they should not be viewed solely through a criminal justice lens.

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Many want the president to quit his re-election bid following a catastrophic debate. His team must ask what is best for the US

The Democrats have no good options. The question now is which is the least dangerous of the bad ones. Democratic voters did not want Joe Biden to run again. Almost 70% judged him too old to serve another term as president when polled last year. Privately, many senior Democrats and donors shared their qualms. But with Mr Biden determined to stand, the consensus was to rally round. Now, after last Thursday’s catastrophic debate, the party is panicking. Only four months from the election, there is frenzied discussion of potential replacements.

That would almost certainly require Mr Biden’s agreement. His wife, Jill, seen as key to his decision, seems to be urging him on. He is said to believe that only he is capable of beating Mr Trump again. Few agree. The lack of a formal mechanism to remove him does not preclude the effects of political gravity. Slumping polls, drying up funds and private, or even public, demands for his departure from senior Democratic figures could yet change his mind. A growing chorus of previously supportive media figures is urging him to quit.

There are only 18 seats at stake in the province this week, but the next UK government has a big political task on its hands there

Compared with the contests in the rest of the UK or in France, the one in Northern Ireland may seem like this week’s electoral sideshow. Devolved government there has finally been resumed. The Brexit protests have died down. And there are only 18 seats in Northern Ireland anyway, out of Westminster’s 650. The chance of the Northern Ireland results affecting the post-election balance of power, as they did in 2017, are vanishingly small this time.

All true. Yet the election in Northern Ireland matters all the same. It matters for Northern Ireland’s people, of course, not least because one in four of them are on an NHS treatment waiting list, a higher figure than in most of Britain. It matters too because, although the devolved institutions have resumed operation, there is too little by way of creative, cross-community, cooperative government to show for it. And it matters because, at least among unionists, the wounds of Brexit have not been fully healed.

The party faces major challenges in tackling the Conservative legacy

On Thursday, voters will have a historic opportunity, not just decisively to evict one of the worst governments this country has ever endured. They will have the chance to replace it with something altogether different: a Labour administration characterised by integrity and a respect for public office, an understanding of ordinary people’s lives, and an honest desire to make Britain a fairer and greener place. Such simple ingredients, but ones that have been missing in action for the past 14 years, to the detriment of us all.

Only three Labour leaders have won majorities in the past 100 years. If the polls are proved right, Keir Starmer looks set to become the fourth, an extraordinary feat just five years after his party suffered its worst electoral defeat since the 1930s. Voters should seize this chance to inflict a heavy electoral loss on the Conservatives for their ruinous period in office, and positively endorse the alternative future that the Labour party offers.

Sir Keir Starmer must win. Only his government can shape the future we want to see

The quirk of elections is that they tend to be swung by the public voting against, rather than for, a party. The sentiment is often either to kick one party out of power and give another a chance, or to re-elect the incumbents for fear of the alternative. In 2019, voters stuck with the devil they knew. This time, polls suggest that the Conservatives will be dumped from office. Their removal cannot come a moment too soon.

The Tories don’t deserve to win. After 14 years in power, they are a shambles. The original sin was austerity. But the precipitating crisis of this government was when voters were told that leaving the EU with the thinnest of deals would be good for them. Nothing could have been further from the truth. From the Pandora’s box of Brexit flew the furies of conspiracy, dishonesty, government abuse and executive overreach. It has been five years of unremitting cruelty and chaos. Starved public services and a miserly welfare state have seen life become poorer, nastier, more brutish and shorter. The right’s obsession with putting the state at the service of the market is destroying councils and universities, and spewing sewage into rivers.

The TV contests between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer were sometimes illuminating, but they avoided the big questions facing Britain

Televised leaders’ debates came late to British general elections. Margaret Thatcher never appeared in one. Nor did Tony Blair. It was not until 2010 that the main UK party leaders took part in the first debates. Since then, debates have become an accepted part of the election campaign landscape. Apart from Theresa May, who refused, to her cost, to take part in 2017, party leaders now recognise that such debates come with the territory.

The 2024 debates have occasionally been illuminating but have generally been uninspiring. Few can argue that they either defined or answered the big questions, on the economy, health, climate and defence, facing Britain. In Wednesday’s BBC debate, the final one of this year’s contest, Rishi Sunak opted for repeated attack as the best form of defence, hammering the line that Labour could not be trusted on tax and migration. Sir Keir Starmer opted for steady reassurance, while attacking the Conservatives over the betting scandal. It was negativity versus safety first.

The doctors should get a pay rise, but they are not the only public servants with a case for better terms

Junior doctors deserve a pay rise. Entry requirements are among the most competitive of all professions, and even were the health service not on its knees, the early years of a medical career would be demanding. Looking after people who are ill or injured is difficult and high-stakes work. Under current conditions, with vast waiting lists, workforce shortages, a rising population of chronically unwell people and, in some places, buildings that are not fit for purpose, it can be a punishing job.

It is two years this month since the British Medical Association voted for pay rises of up to 30% over five years. Consultants agreed a deal with the government last year, as did nurses. But junior doctors, who make up about half of all NHS doctors in England, have held out. In March, in a further ballot, 98% opted to keep striking in pursuit of a 35% pay rise, on a 62% turnout. The five-day strike that started on Thursday is their 11th. When it ends they will have been on strike for a total of 44 days since they first walked out in March last year. At least 1.3m cancelled appointments have been among the results.

The political gambling scandal resonates because voters have become cynical about the motives and priorities of people in public office

Political scandals, once they gain sufficient momentum, evolve beyond the initial offence. Only a small number of people were in a position to profit from certain knowledge that Rishi Sunak intended to set 4 July as polling day. Justified outrage that some of them appear to have exploited that advantage – as first revealed by the Guardian – has mutated into generalised suspicion of any candidate who has placed a bet on election outcomes. The prospect of banning the practice, following the model already in place for professional sport, has been raised.

That would not be necessary if parliamentary candidates and party officials had reliable intuition regarding standards in public life. Even if there is no corrupt intent, gambling on an election in which you are participating demonstrates terrible judgment. Democracy is not a game. What may seem like a harmless flutter to someone close to the process can look irresponsible and grubby from afar. That risk is especially high in a climate of intensifying mistrust of the political process.

Putting his own interests above his country’s is nothing new for the Israeli prime minister, but it is increasingly blatant

While Benjamin Netanyahu picks fights at home and abroad, he is more closely tied than ever to the worst parts of the domestic political realm. Last week, Israel’s prime minister laid into its chief ally, the US, which has reproved him but done little to stop the war in Gaza, or avert the looming and surely disastrous conflict with Hezbollah. On Monday, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, labelled António Guterres an “accomplice to terror” and alleged his sole aim had been “to help Hamas survive this war”, after the secretary-general accused Israel (without directly naming it) of spreading misinformation about him.

Yet Mr Netanyahu will go to any lengths to keep his far-right coalition partners in the fold. He granted political legitimacy to the Otzma Yehudit party of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, and to the Religious Zionist party of the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, when he invited them into power. He clings to them increasingly desperately. Without them, he faces not only the loss of his position but trial on the corruption charges that have hung over his head for so long. The far right saw off US attempts to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal, laying bare the growing rift between the Israel Defense Forces and the government.