Based on the largest poll of supporters yet, these charts and maps show five distinct groups that could hand Reform a majority
Research based on a poll of 11,000 Reform UK supporters, the biggest survey of its kind, tells us more about who is intending to vote for the party than has been previously known.
The in-depth polling analysis from Hope Not Hate reveals a voter coalition that stretches from struggling workers and frustrated graduates to wealthy retirees, in places from Hitchin to Runcorn.
Since its inception 15 years ago, the Nigerian event has established itself on the international fashion calendar. Platforming sustainability and social issues, and showcasing local talent, it’s doing things a little differently
Inside a marquee in the grounds of Lagos’s five-star Federal Palace hotel and casino, models wearing sharply tailored suits and flowing woven pieces in earthy tones walk down the catwalk to the beats of Yoruba talking drums, an ancestral instrument that can mimic the sound of speech. The show, presenting the latest collection from the brand Emmy Kasbit – known for transforming handwoven Akwete fabric into modern silhouettes – marked the official start of 2025’s Lagos fashion week, which took place in the former Nigerian capital last month.
From a dedicated catwalk space featuring more than 70 designers, to the American singer Ciara closing one of the shows wearing a gele – a traditional Nigerian head wrap – the showcase, which takes place every October, has come a long way from its early days of power cuts and a lack of interest from industry gatekeepers.
These spongy, doughnutty snacks are a Nigerian staple with a Dutch twist
Efteling is a fairytale-themed, 73-year-old amusement park in the south of the Netherlands that, after two consecutive years of visits, has become an acute obsession among my family. We love the vaguely folk-horror animatronic trees, witches and giant sea monsters lurking within a labyrinthine real forest. We love the anthropomorphised talking bins that plead (in a haunting, perpetual sing-song) for crumpled pieces of paper to be shoved into their suction-powered mouths. We love the inventive rides that, variously, judder along rattling wooden tracks, plunge cursed pirate ships into water, or nudge gondolas serenely through sylvan scenes of bum-flashing goblins showering beneath waterfalls.
But our very favourite thing about the place might well be the poffertjes stand, a perennially busy kiosk where exhausted families gather for dinky paper boats filled with these yeast-puffed and sugar-dusted miniature buckwheat pancakes that are a Dutch institution. Made to order in a vast, uniformly indented pan, speared through their light, custardy middles with toothpicks and served with a thick swoop of pale butter, they always prompt an acute, grunting sort of shared pleasure and succour. Poffertjes (pronounced a little like “poffeh-tyuss”) are the dangled prize for the four of us; a reliable salve to the jittery overstimulation-loop that only themed leisure environments can provide. When we cajoled the blubbering eight-year-old on to a haunted house attraction that then promptly broke down (I imagine this tale will be tearfully described to a therapist one day), a shared portion of a dozen, ethereally warm poffertjes was how we chose both to apologise and collectively soothe our jangled nerves.
Picky, by Jimi Famurewa, is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £20. To order a copy for £18, visit guardianbookshop.com
This is no single bloc marching under one ideology, or even a mass of ‘red-wall’ voters. What unites them is a desire for something different
Who are Nigel Farage’s army, the voters who want him as our next prime minister? Few questions are as important in British politics. Were an election called tomorrow, the favourite for No 10 would be Farage, whose immigration policies are in some ways more extreme than those of the BNP were. His party’s role model for government would be Donald Trump’s US: Elon Musk-style cuts to our public services and masked agents snatching families off the streets.
A few months ago, many in Westminster and across the country would have considered this a cautionary nightmare, a catastrophe that would unfold if Keir Starmer failed. But in the week of another red-on-red assault and after 150 opinion polls in a row topped by Farage’s Reform UK, it’s no longer a scare story. It’s the most likely prospect.
Seven out of 10 people surveyed by Live Nation would pick a concert over sex. Given our dating and ticketing hellscapes it is interesting to consider which is the more reliable pleasure
Let’s say you find yourself with an evening free. You’re feeling refreshed, open to experience, and eager to shake things up a bit from your usual post-work routine of slump-and-scroll. The world is your oyster! Would you rather a) go to a gig or b) have sex? The answer, as is so often the case with these “would you rather” questions, is obviously: “It depends.” Thinking adults may reasonably inquire: what is the gig? Who is the sex with? Is it likely to be good?
Few would opt for a Limp Bizkit/Slipknot/Korn triple bill if one enchanted evening with Jonathan Bailey was the alternative. But adjust either end of the equation, and it becomes less clearcut. For the 40,000 people asked this question by gig promoter Live Nation, however, no such clarification was offered – and the response came out unambiguously and overwhelmingly in favour of gigs.
Sometimes there are nights that are as simple as Mike Brown’s four-word assessment after the Knicks' loss to the magic: “They kicked our ass,” he said.
Videos show schoolgirls fighting off animals, while others show people feeding bears, with some so realistic that users struggled to distinguish between fact and fiction
If a record number of fatal bear attacks wasn’t terrifying enough, experts say a torrent of AI-generated videos in Japan purporting to show people in close encounters with the animals is only adding to public anxiety – and could put people at greater risk.
While headlines about real attacks and disruption appear on a regular basis, monitors of online content are warning social media users not to be taken in by realistic videos on platforms such as TikTok of the animals attacking or interacting with humans.
Restrictions for entry to Schengen zone announced last Friday because of sabotage attacks linked to Russia
Russian opposition figures have reacted with anger and dismay to a decision by the European Union to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens, announced in recent days.
“Starting a war and expecting to move freely in Europe is hard to justify,” said the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, when announcing the decision last Friday. She added that the tightened rules were a response to Russian drone incursions into European airspace and sabotage attacks linked to Russia.
"That’s actually nasty. I can smell it as soon as I walk out of the elevator. Almost taste it," a police officer exiting the building said of the stench.
Manhattan’s fertility clinics are witnessing a quiet transformation in how women approach motherhood — and it starts with putting patients back in control At New Hope Fertility Center, a revolutionary approach is changing everything. With a focus on personalized solutions, less hormones and more hope, they empower individuals to rise above the challenges of fertility...
Nearly 3,000 US hospitals were scored “A” through “F” based on how well they protect patients from preventable medical errors, accidents, injuries and infections.
When dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned, her husband went on hunger strike – to force Britain to act. Narges Rashidi and Joseph Fiennes reveal how they brought their nightmare to the small screen
When Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran in 2016, it wasn’t immediately obvious what had happened – but within 100 days, we had the contours of the story. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, held a press conference. He had amassed 780,000 signatures on a petition for her release, and delivered a letter urging the same thing to former PM David Cameron. This, it transpired much later, was after murky meetings with the Foreign Office in which civil servants insisted that the best thing, both for Nazanin’s release and the safety of her parents and brother in Iran, was to lay low and let diplomacy take its course.
“It was state hostage-taking,” says Joseph Fiennes, who plays Richard Ratcliffe in the BBC’s four-part drama Prisoner 951. “It clearly goes on, and innocent people and families are completely disrupted and tarred for life. And now I’ve told this story, I look at anyone that might be accused of something, and I don’t quite believe it.”
Documents show staff kept Epstein informed of Trump’s air travel – and Epstein kept up with news about former friend
A tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Donald Trump’sair travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured.
This disclosure of about 20,000 pages from Republican members of the committee related to Epstein comes as Trump continues to battle with the political fallout related to their past friendship – and his justice department’s failure to release documents as he had long promised on the campaign trail.
Car-critical measures have been slashed since the conservative CDU came into power in 2023, triggering protests and dividing communities
In the rubble left by the second world war, Berlin seized a zero-hour opportunity to remake itself with a brave new vision of mobility, its citizens zooming down broad avenues and autobahns in roaring German-engineered cars.
Tramlines, particularly in the capitalist west of the divided city, were ripped out to make way for motorists, and bicycles were muscled out of the main traffic arteries. The autogerechte Stadt (car-friendly city) was born.
Troubled waters over the world’s longest suspension bridge are no surprise. The Italian government should be funding public services
A dozen or so times each day, as Italy’s southbound Intercity rail service arrives in the Calabrian town of Villa San Giovanni, the journey comes to a dramatic halt. The train is decoupled from its tracks, carefully loaded on to the deck of a ferry, and secured in place. The entire cargo then eases out into the Strait of Messina en route to Sicily. Invariably, this 25-minute crossing becomes an impromptu community moment. Passengers abandon their carriages, flocking to the ship’s top-deck snack bar to share freshly fried arancini, trade anecdotes, and admire the vista over Mount Etna’s distant peak, before returning to continue their journey by rail.
For tourists and itinerant visitors like myself, the ferry crossing is a charming novelty. For local people, however, it has long been a defining part of their identity. In his 1941 novel, Conversations in Sicily, the writer Elio Vittorini describes a group of fruit pickers congregating on the boat’s deck, feasting on large chunks of local cheese and enjoying the view. As the narrator joins them, he is transported to “being a boy; feeling the wind devouring the sea”, while gazing out at “the ruins along the two coasts”, separated, poetically, across the water.
Jamie Mackay is a writer and translator based in Florence
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