Progressive and centrist voters joined forces to keep Marine Le Pen’s party at bay. But last-ditch resistance is not a long-term strategy

Confronted with its biggest test since the second world war, France’s republican front magnificently, defiantly held the line. More than 200 candidates from the left and centre withdrew from Sunday’s second round of legislative elections to allow better-placed rivals a free run against Marine Le Pen’s radical right. Their sacrifice was rewarded beyond anyone’s expectations. Having won the first round with a vote share that suggested an absolute majority was within reach, Ms Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) slumped to third place.

In an era when the rise of rightwing nationalism has coincided with declining trust in mainstream politics, this is an outcome to celebrate. Emmanuel Macron’s reckless election allowed RN to substantially bolster its number of MPs. But a high turnout across France led to millions of voters burying very real differences to join forces against it. They did so in order to see off a party whose xenophobic core is at odds with republican values of equality and inclusion. The RN’s plans to bar dual nationals from sensitive state jobs proved to be a political liability, not an asset. So did an array of candidates whose racist views and pro‑Putin sympathies, when uncovered on social media, inspired widespread revulsion.

The US president is still in denial about his ability to take on Donald Trump, but his party is not

Joe Biden says only “the Lord almighty” could make him quit his re-election bid. “I am not going anywhere,” he insisted in a surprise call to a morning talkshow on Monday, having warned party colleagues off further discussion in a letter. Anyone wanting him to step aside, he said, should “challenge me at the convention” in August. Perhaps he would better understand the problem if he had watched his disastrous debate appearance. But if the president is still in denial, far fewer lawmakers, donors and supporters believe that his candidacy is sustainable amid mounting concern about his capabilities.

Resilience is a virtue. Mr Biden has shown it in spades, and it has served him and his country well. His grit and application helped to save the United States from a second Trump term, and to recover from the first. But knowing when to quit matters too. In 2020, Mr Biden described himself as the “bridge” to a new generation of leaders. Stepping aside now would be a belated act of dignity and wisdom. Clinging on as the Democrats head towards November in a doom‑spiral of division and recrimination, leading to Donald Trump’s return to the White House, would for ever tarnish his name.

Masoud Pezeshkian’s surprise victory suggests a recalibration by the regime, but he will have limited room for manoeuvre

Even when the regime unexpectedly approved the candidacy of a moderate, many Iranians opted out of the presidential election, suspecting that if voting really changed anything, the authorities would probably have made it illegal. That was reflected in the first round’s record low turnout: just 39.9%.

Yet Masoud Pezeshkian made it to the second round and has now swept to victory, beating his hardline opponent, Saeed Jalili, by 16.3m votes to 13.5m votes. Though some boycotted the runoff too, turnout shot up to 49.8% as the public realised that the former heart surgeon and health minister could make it to the top.

His belief in reading as the foundation of happiness ensures that young readers could not have a better advocate

The world’s most overrated book, according to the UK’s newly anointed children’s laureate, is William Golding’s dystopian Lord of the Flies. It is “an enjoyable romp that people have taken as a revelation about human nature, which could not be more wrong”, wrote Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

This opinion might sum up the aura of sunny optimism that surrounds one of the country’s most versatile and successful writers, who made the comment on publication of his own most recent novel for children, Noah’s Gold. But to insist that humanity is not innately bad is not to deny that urgent work is needed to enable it to release its potential. And the project starts with reading, said Mr Cottrell-Boyce at his investiture in Leeds. It means addressing the invisible privilege and inequality which give some children a bright future that is unimaginable to others.

The prime minister has reminded the country that politics can be a force for good and change people’s lives

It could not come soon enough. After 14 years, Britain at last has a government motivated by re-energising a sluggish economy rather than channelling lucrative state contracts to wealthy friends. A government keen to close the gap between young people from different backgrounds rather than impoverishing children. And one that aims to restore the NHS to its world-leading status rather than neglecting it and leaving people unable to get the care they need. Standing on the steps of Downing Street on Friday, prime minister Keir Starmer delivered a message of hope, pledging to remind the country that politics can be a force for good, and government can change people’s lives for the better.

It was a decisive and deserved victory: the largest majority any government has secured since 1997, just shy of that achieved by Tony Blair. The Conservatives were reduced to a rump of just 121 seats, voters forcing out cabinet minister after cabinet minister, a fitting verdict on a truly dreadful governing record. In Scotland, SNP incumbents were similarly swept away, leaving Labour the largest party in terms of Westminster seats.

His farewell speech at Wimbledon felt like a bereavement for some, but he was more than his tennis

‘Sports people die twice” – this was the standout line from the new documentary Federer: Twelve Final Days, which tracked the Swiss player’s emotional sign-off from professional tennis in 2022. The idea is that there’s the death that is coming for all of us, when we take our final breath, but the top-level athlete fits in another one: when they retire. In some ways, this “death” can be even harder to come to terms with. How does it feel to know – for sure – that your greatest days are behind you?

Andy Murray – who has announced he will never play singles again – died his first death at Wimbledon last week. And the 37-year-old really went kicking and screaming: “It’s hard because I want to keep playing, but I can’t,” he told the crowd on Centre Court on Thursday. “Physically it’s too tough now. I want to play forever. I love the sport. I don’t want to stop.” For some watching, the occasion did feel like a bereavement. Spectators were in tears; there was talk of “grieving” and “trauma”. This is telling about what Murray has come to mean to us. In the greatest era of men’s tennis, he was the mortal sent to battle the holy trinity of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The fact that he sometimes prevailed was heartwarming and profound and stirring.

Sir Keir Starmer has the Commons strength to be daring. That means fulfilling hopes he did little to excite

• UK election live – latest updates

“We ran as a changed Labour party,” declared Sir Keir Starmer on Friday morning, shortly after Rishi Sunak publicly conceded defeat, “and we will govern as a changed Labour party.” He has yet to elucidate what this change might be. But Labour’s leader presented himself as a prime minister ready and able to alter the current alarming state of affairs. Sir Keir did not sweep his party – or the nation – off its feet. But voters handed him a resounding electoral victory. By presenting itself as an improvement without upheaval, Labour was preferred to the alternative of a chaotic and ruinous Conservative administration.

Sir Keir now towers over the British parliament like no politician since Tony Blair. Labour governments only come once in a generation. The party won a landslide, with a 170-plus majority. The victory was built on a collapse in Conservative support. Gone from parliament are some of the biggest Tory names, including 12 cabinet-attending ministers and the former prime minister Liz Truss. Labour deserves the nation’s gratitude for ending a dalliance with cronyism and charlatanry.

An unprecedented storm has caused devastation. Caribbean states need support

The islands that have been hardest hit by Hurricane Beryl will take years to recover. Nine out of 10 homes on Union, which is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines in the eastern Caribbean, were damaged or destroyed on Monday. On Carriacou, which is part of Grenada, hardly any buildings were left unscathed. On Tuesday, the Grenadian prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, described the situation as “almost Armageddon-like”.

The course taken by Beryl meant that Jamaica, which is home to nearly 3 million people, did not receive its full force as had been feared. But houses and roads were flooded, and a woman was killed, taking the overall death toll to at least 10. Barbados and other islands were also damaged.

Previous generations built substantial amounts of local authority housing with gardens. We should learn from their example

To see one of the greatest challenges facing the next prime minister, head down the A13 to Dagenham. Just off the dual carriageway lies something remarkable: the world’s first and arguably still largest public housing estate. Spanning 4 sq miles, Becontree comprised 24,000 homes and housed 120,000 people. Begun just over a century ago as part of Lloyd George’s homes for heroes, it is proof of what a battered, heavily indebted government can do – if it has the drive.

The 1920s and 30s saw one of the greatest building booms in British history. This was the era of train stations advancing over Metroland, of the giant Wythenshawe development in Manchester. Cottage estates such as Becontree are now dismissed as humdrum, but to families escaping the poverty-stricken East End, these modest homes would have marked a golden opportunity. And they came with gardens. As the outgoing local MP, Jon Cruddas, observes, if the Americans had built something as grand in scope and scale as Becontree, “you’d never hear the end of it”.

In a volatile and cynical age, the availability of peaceful regime change by the ballot box cannot be taken for granted

The youngest eligible voters in Thursday’s general election were four years old when David Cameron became prime minister. They have known only Conservative prime ministers since then. This electoral cohort has also grown up in the long shadow of the global financial crisis that struck before they started school. Much of the political turbulence that has tracked their lives so far can be seen as ripples emanating from that economic cataclysm.

The surge in public borrowing and deficit spending required to stabilise the financial system became the pretext for budget austerity under Mr Cameron’s coalition government. The consequent corrosion of public services and withdrawal of economic safety nets fed disillusionment and cultivated resentments that would help tip the scales in favour of Brexit in 2016. The young person who votes for the first time today, and whose future opportunities were curtailed by that referendum, was only 10 when it was held.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The supreme court’s sweeping ruling is a blow to democracy in the US

The supreme court’s ruling on presidential immunity combines a tectonic constitutional shift and immediate political repercussions to devastating effect. It allows one man to stand above the law. It slows and appears to gut the 2020 election-subversion case against Donald Trump, though it does not necessarily end it. No one believes a trial can be held before November’s election, although court hearings could still offer a detailed airing of the evidence this autumn.

There could hardly have been a better week for Mr Trump, who saw his rival stumble so badly in last Thursday’s debate that Joe Biden faces growing calls to quit four months from election day. Anyone who doubts how consequential a second Trump administration term would be for the United States and the world need only look to the supreme court, now ruled by a conservative supermajority thanks to three Trump-appointed justices.

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.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.