Government to announce terms which could free more than 20,000 inmates in coming months to manage capacity

The “shocking” prisons crisis is even worse than feared, Keir Starmer has said as the government prepares to release tens of thousands of inmates early in a bid to prevent jails becoming full.

The prime minister suggested he was opposed to freeing violent criminals and sex offenders when ministers announce the terms of a new prisoner release scheme for England and Wales on Friday.

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© Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

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© Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

In 1966, a colliery spoil tip collapsed on a primary school in Wales. 144 people were killed, including 116 children. Gaynor Madgwick recalls waking up in the debris – and the horror and healing that followed

Gaynor Madgwick remembers her excitement that morning in 1966. It was the last day of term, and she and her siblings would be let out of school at lunchtime.

They had got up, three to a bed in their little terraced house in Aberfan, a village in south Wales. Their mother had, as usual, already lit the coal fire. Carl, the only boy among the six children, didn’t want to go to school, but they were sent out with some money to buy a few sweets from the shop on the way.

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© Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Guardian

At last, it's UK General Election day!

As Britons go to the polls, the choices are stark: plump for the unexciting former Director of Public Prosecutions whose party promises little more than to be Not the Tories, whose values somewhat align with roughly half the population, even if his government will face huge challenges in reversing the country's decline? Or stick with the former Chancellor of the Exchequer who stumbled into the top job thanks to the unacceptable behaviour and rank incompetence of his predecessors, armed with little more than unfounded optimism, considerable personal wealth and a privileged upbringing? Will Britons vote in the hope that things might not be quite as shit? Or for waterways full of shit? For towering aspirations of a brighter future? Or for burning dodgily clad towers? For "wokeness" and "right on" policies and politics, or waking up to riots? For working with our European neighbours, or for strangling British business in red tape? For propping up public services, or for toppling them? For standing up to fascists or pandering to them? The choices are so complex that one in five people still haven't decided yet to abandon the Tories. The question now is, will the rest vote 628 non-Tory MPs into Westminster (out of the 650 available seats) or only 493? And how many of those will be closet fascists—or their Facebook friends? Will Ed Davey's extended jolly of paddle-boarding and bungee-jumping end with his becoming the new leader of the opposition? Can Britain really consign one of its oldest political parties to the wilderness? We'll find out at around 4am British Summer Time tomorrow.