Readers respond to an article by Shaniya Odulawa on how young people have been put off politics and from voting in the general election

Good on Shaniya Odulawa for expressing the views of many young people about politics (I never thought I’d abstain from voting, but many young people will – and can you blame us?, 21 June). I share her feelings about Brexit. But what options do we have? Young people have the option to oust the present government – surely that alone is enough to vote, albeit grudgingly, for a Labour government? It’s not all about the leader, it’s about what Labour will do on the ground if elected. There will be a new feeling of optimism and actual change, which is impossible to imagine, given how we have lived for the last 14 years.

I must vote. I am 68 years old. The Equality and Franchise Act 1928 gave women over 21 the right to vote for the first time. This meant 15 million women could vote. My mother was born two years after that act and it was drilled into me by her that women fought for us to have that right to vote, so I must exercise it.

Adrian Carter is using polling to help him vote tactically. Plus a letter from Keith Flett

In an otherwise thoughtful article, John Harris neglects one important virtue of pre-election polls (I’ve seen all the ‘landslide’ polls – but they can’t tell us what’s really going on in this election, 23 June). I have spent most of my adult life in constituencies where, in retrospect, voting for the government I wanted would have been best served by voting locally for another party. I do not need help in deciding which issues are important to me or which government is more likely to deliver the outcomes I want, but I do need help in deciding where my vote would best be placed to secure the national outcome I favour. Well-structured polls are a help with this.

To give an example, it is clear from an overview of the six MRP polls I have examined that the party I’m inclined to favour has little chance of winning in my constituency. But if I want to rid myself of the worst government in my lifetime, armed with MRP data, the logical thing for me to do is to vote not for my favoured party but for a third party that has a chance of beating the Conservatives in this seat. I shall know on 5 July whether I have made the right choice, but my chance of doing so is much enhanced by the existence of constituency-level polls.
Adrian Carter
Penselwood, Somerset

The work and pensions secretary’s colleagues must be trapped under something heavy because no one but Stride is pulling their weight

• UK election live – latest updates

Regrettably many of us will have been awake a long time today before the latest broadcast round undertaken by the Last Cabinet Minister, Mel Stride. Even so, a Mel Stride appearance during this election has developed a strong flavour of all those mornings in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s clock radio lurches into life halfway through I Got You Babe. The dormant voter need only hear the genial work and pensions secretary say “let’s not get too carried away here” to sit bolt upright as the grim reality dawns once more. As the long days have passed, these listeners have worked their way through all the emotions: disbelief, anger, resignation, smash radio, restart cycle. Just hearing that Stride is “joining us after the headlines” or “up next” produces a Pavlovian response: a million-yard stare and the realisation that it is the general election again – it is somehow still the general election – and, indeed, it may always and for ever be the general election.

And yet, to lightly adapt the words that once graced Mario Balotelli’s base layer: “WHY ALWAYS MEL?” Even broadcast interviewers playing the Sonny to Mel’s Cher have begun to ask where the rest of the cabinet are. It’s honestly hard to say. Ladbrokes? I cannot remember a single general election where the cabinet has been so utterly invisible in the national campaign. They may as well be in witness protection.

Lack of funds is a big issue in state schools, with experts wanting Labour to be bolder with its spending plans

• UK election live – latest updates

Labour appears poised to win a historic election victory on 4 July. In the series Life under Labour, we look at Keir Starmer’s five key political missions, and ask what is at stake and whether he can implement the change the country is crying out for.

“It’s tough. It’s very, very tough,” says Glyn Potts, the headteacher at Newman Roman Catholic college in Oldham as he reflected on the challenges facing education in England.

Gentrification is pricing out people from Hertfordshire town where voters are divided over plans to build new homes

• UK election live – latest updates

The green belt around Hitchin has rarely looked greener. A chlorophyll-friendly cycle of pouring rain and blazing sunshine has left the landscapes of this Hertfordshire-Bedfordshire constituency throbbing with midsummer life.

But these open fields and stands of oak are at the heart of the issue vexing so many voters here in this general election: how to crack the housing crisis.

The general election hopefuls have revealed their viewing habits, but how come Rishi Sunak didn’t mention that Bridgerton sex scene?

In 1998, then-prime minister Tony Blair asked the home secretary, Jack Straw, to look into the release of wrongly imprisoned Weatherfield resident Deirdre Rachid. “It is clear to anyone with eyes in their head she is innocent and she should be freed,” he said. Opposition leader William Hague followed suit: “The whole nation is deeply concerned about Deirdre, Conservatives as much as everyone else.” They were, of course, talking about a fictional character on one of the UK’s most popular soaps, Coronation Street. Politicians had just realised the power of talking telly.

Here we are more than 25 years later, then, in the age of prestige TV and streaming – and an election that could end the Tories’ 14-year run. Soaps may have lost their grip, but television is stronger than ever, and MPs are desperate to be relatable. It makes sense that a party leader naming their favourite show has become part of the PR machine. But with so much more choice comes more opportunity to succeed or fail in reaching voters – and this election’s frontrunners are clearly trying to get messages across with the shows they named in a Radio Times article this week.

Hollie Richardson is the assistant TV editor for the Guardian

Green New Deal Rising is backing six of party’s candidates but says leadership cares more about business than climate

• UK election live – latest updates

Rachel Reeves talks to business executives. She met some in December, after a £150,000 donation to Labour from a financial services firm. She met more in January, at capitalism’s annual jamboree in Davos. And just this week she told a meeting of City bankers their “fingerprints are all over” Labour’s manifesto.

But she does not talk so much to young people worried about the climate emergency. Or so 23-year-old Zak found when he tracked Reeves down to a cafe where she was campaigning on Wednesday morning. “I’m a young person with Green New Deal Rising,” he said, approaching her.

I read them all so you don’t have to. None in isolation would set the world alight, but look closely and there are some good ideas

It is true that election manifestos can’t be compared like with like – and in recent years, the variation of detail, trustworthiness and meaning has become more pronounced than ever. But it is also true that there are things to be gleaned from their recurring themes. Moreover, there are objectively good ideas which may emanate from a party that will never be able to enact them, but nevertheless deserve exposure.

Looked at that way, it’s a great year to be a dentist, or in construction. Every party (bar Reform and the SNP) talks a great game on dental provision – even, ironically, the Conservatives, who have a £200m “recovery plan”. Toothache doesn’t feel very metaphorical when you have it, but the issue speaks to a broader truth that Keir Starmer made explicit in his manifesto launch speech: that the real-life impacts of degraded public services are too stark to ignore – which is precisely why everyone is pledging that the nothing-works years are over.

Exclusive: Videos on Reform leader’s account show more engagement and average views than any other candidate

• UK election live – latest updates

Nigel Farage is outperforming all other parties and candidates on TikTok throughout the general election campaign, analysis shows, eclipsing politicians considered most popular among young people.

Since the election was called, videos posted to the Reform leader’s personal account had more engagement and views on average than any other candidate – as well as the main channels of other parties.

The anti-Tory tide sweeping the country has much to tell us about the volatility of voting since Brexit

There are various ways to map the spectrum of public opinion and model voter journeys from one pole to another, but none applies to Sheila. White-haired and frail, she takes a few minutes to come to the door of her small redbrick terrace house on an estate in Eastbourne’s Hampden Park suburb. She looks tired and explains that medication for a serious illness makes her sleepy. But a glint of something like mischief flickers in her eyes when she’s asked who has her support at the coming election.

It’s a close call. Reform or Liberal Democrat. Sheila likes what Nigel Farage has to say and has backed Ukip before (never the Tories). Pressed to choose, she declares her decision by pointing emphatically at the young man standing on her doorstep holding a stack of orange-fringed flyers. Josh Babarinde’s reputation has preceded him.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: election results special. On Friday 5 July, 7.30pm-9pm BST, join Hugh Muir, Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams for unrivalled analysis of the general election results.

Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

RNIB calls on all parties to commit to remove barriers that prevent people with sight loss voting on their own

• UK election live – latest updates

Tens of thousand of people with sight loss will be denied their right to a secret ballot at next week’s general election, campaigners have warned, prompting calls to make it the last inaccessible election.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is calling on all political parties to commit to remove barriers that prevent blind people voting on their own and without help in future elections.

Men aged between 20 and 52 escorted from grounds of PM’s constituency home after lunchtime entry to estate

Four men have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass at the prime minister’s constituency home in Yorkshire, police have said.

The suspects were arrested on Tuesday in the grounds of Rishi Sunak’s home in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton at about 12.40pm before being escorted off the property, North Yorkshire police said.

Peter Soulsby says party should be reminding Leicester East voters about sex and drug allegations against former MP

Keith Vaz could be re-elected as an MP because Labour is failing to highlight that he was disgraced in office amid drug and sex allegations, the Labour mayor of Leicester has said.

Peter Soulsby said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by his party’s complacency, which could allow the former Europe minister to win back his former seat of Leicester East.

Exclusive: Welsh politician Russell George told by Gambling Commission he is part of inquiry as Tories drop Craig Williams and Laura Saunders

A Conservative politician has become the fifth party figure to be investigated by the gambling watchdog for allegedly placing a suspicious bet on the general election date, as the developing scandal continued to overshadow Rishi Sunak’s campaign.

The Gambling Commission has informed Russell George, a Tory member of the Welsh parliament who represents the same constituency as Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide Craig Williams, that he is part of its inquiry.

The election has just over a week to go and traditionally it is around now that voters start to really engage with the campaign. But this year feels different, says Jim Waterson

Leanne Mohamad gave up her Labour membership last year and believes she is in a two-horse race in east London seat

• UK election live – latest updates

In late October, Leanne Mohamad relinquished her membership of the Labour party, dismayed after Keir Starmer said Israel had the right to withhold water and power from Palestinians trapped in Gaza. “When Keir Starmer said what he did on LBC, I was like, I’m done with politics, I’m done with this whole system,” she said.

She was not the only one. Although Starmer later sought to clarify his stance, the interview sparked criticism and prompted resignations among Labour councillors, which was seen as a sign that the party’s position on Gaza could prove costly at the ballot box.

Rishi Sunak was meant to clean up the Tory party. Instead he will leave it morally and ideologically exhausted

In the dying days of Donald Trump’s presidency, the log fire in his chief of staff’s office was lit daily.

The outgoing team were frantically burning documents, or so the White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson writes in her memoir, to the point that her own boss’s wife reportedly complained that his suits smelled of smoke. Many alarming things happened in those final days, but the fall-of-Rome atmosphere is somehow captured in that whiff of bonfire. The paranoia; the panic; the queasy feeling of something very wrong at the heart of public life.

Rishi Sunak has heavily criticised comments from Nigel Farage that the west provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Archie Bland reports

In the latest episode of Anywhere but Westminster, John Harris and John Domokos go to Woking, Guildford and Aldershot. Most of England's south-east used to be loyally Conservative - now, however, people in the "blue wall" are struggling, cuts are biting, and Toryism today is leaving younger voters behind.

In the run-up to July's election, the Guardian video team is touring the UK looking at issues that matter to communities. In the town of Port Talbot, in the Aberafan Maesteg constituency, many voters are worried about the future of the steelworks where at least 2,800 jobs are on the line. ​We spoke to businesses, food banks and charities and politicians, all worried about the knock-on effect on families who have been steelworkers for generations. We also heard voters' other concerns and asked politicians what people were saying about the steelworks on the doorstep

In the first video of a new series of Anywhere but Westminster, John Harris and John Domokos revisit Stoke-on-Trent, the once-loyal Labour city that went totally Tory in 2019. Has 'levelling up' money made up for swingeing local cuts? Will Labour win again? And what do people working hard to turn the place around think  about the future? 

In the run-up to July's general election, the Guardian video team is touring the UK looking at the issues that matter to voters. After swimmers and rowers fell sick from sewage discharges into the River Thames we went to the seat of Henley and Thame to see how environmental concerns rank for voters in a seat that has been Conservative for more than 100 years