It’s worn by everyone from French mechanics to Harry Styles. What is it about the chore jacket that makes it so enduring – and can a modern version ever be truly authentic?

Look around you and before too long you are likely to spot a chore jacket. I saw a particularly fine example on a dad last weekend at a heritage railway. As warm days stretch into still-cold evenings, beer gardens are full of them. They are worn down allotments and in towns, and I have a few in my own wardrobe. Because what began as everyday workwear for French factory employees more than a century ago has today become a wardrobe stalwart. You can even find chore jackets in the supermarket, with Sainsbury’s Tu and Asda’s George offering the cheapest – the simple design lends itself to mass production.

They march across my Instagram feed, from workwear-inspired brands LF Markey, Folk or Uskees, down through high street stores such as Zara and John Lewis, as well as at hyper-expensive label The Row – your French machinist might have muttered a piquant “dis donc!” at its chore, with pockets too close together and a £1,500 price tag. The jacket has been worn by the likes of Brooklyn Beckham and Hailey Bieber, while Harry Styles is often seen in a version by SS Daley, the label inspired by British class tensions (and in which he has a financial stake).

Last week’s ruling clarified the legal safeguards of the Equality Act. However, it was a travesty that the battle needed to be fought at all

Middle-aged women are expected to fade into the background, to be apologetic for their existence, to quietly accept their lot. They’re not supposed to stick up for themselves, to enforce their boundaries, to say no. As a woman, these societal expectations have been drummed into me from day one. But still. The swell of anger and disgust that rose in response to the supreme court judgment last week that made clear women’s rights are not for dismantling – rights already won, that were supposed to be ours all along – has taken my breath away.

I was in court last Wednesday to hear Lord Hodge confirm that the Equality Act’s legal protections that were always intended for women are, indeed, reserved for women. He reiterated that trans people continue to have the same robust legal protections against discrimination and harassment as any other protected group, something I’ve always emphasised in my own writing. But men who identify as female – whether or not they have a legal certificate – are not to be treated as though female for the purposes of equalities law.

The German photographer captures a moment of tranquility one Scandinavian summer

“Who has known the ocean?” asked the pioneering American marine biologist, conservationist and writer Rachel Carson in her groundbreaking essay Undersea, published in the Atlantic in 1937. With our “earth-bound senses”, neither you nor I can grasp how profoundly the ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is shallow and deep, light and dark, placid and chaotic, benign and dangerous – filled with surprise and, possibly overall, beauty. For this reason, Carson observed, “no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry”.

The same is perhaps true of visually representing the ocean, from prints to films to multimedia installations. A new book, Ocean, accompanies a sprawling group show at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, a country in which one is never more than 32 miles (about 51 kilometres) from the sea – the fluid, changeable body laps at every just-distant horizon. Anna Atkins, Jean Painlevé, Hiroshi Sugimoto and John Akomfrah are but a few of the artists whose marine visions are presented.

Ocean, edited by Tine Colstrup, is published by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art this summer and available to preorder now

A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movie

Most people know the North Road of this book’s title as the London-to-Edinburgh A1. But, as Rob Cowen writes, A1 is a cipher for a 400-mile multiplicity of roads – a historically diverse bundle that includes ancient trackways, a Roman road, the “Old North Road” and the “Great North Road” (the name generally applied to what became the A1 in the road-numbering scheme of the 1920s). This collective forms, as Cowen has it, our primary road – the “backbone” of Britain.

As a frequent shuttler between north and south, I prefer the North Road to its rival, the bland, homogenous M1. It has verges and laybys, eccentric pit-stops where the coffee is not necessarily Costa, and a scruffy, improvised air, suggesting something organically arisen from the landscape. But whereas I have merely driven along the road, Cowen has communed with its ghosts.

The supreme court judgment gives protections to women at the same level as other groups

The meaning of “woman” and “female” in the Equality Act has become one of the most contested questions of recent years. Last week the supreme court settled it, in a landmark legal judgment that affirms the rights of women to the same level of legal protection afforded to other groups.

The Equality Act protects people against discrimination on the basis of nine protected characteristics, including their sex, race, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. The question at stake was whether “sex” means someone’s biological sex, or their “certificated sex”; in other words, should those who are male but who have a gender recognition certificate (GRC) be treated as a woman under equalities law?

Badenoch is braced for heavy losses in the local elections on 1 May, but as Labour stumbles and Greens and Lib Dems surge, the contest is wide open

A byelection in a normally safe Labour seat was Keir Starmer’s first big electoral test as Labour leader. A similar scenario now provides his first test as prime minister. The loss of Hartlepool to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2021 provoked the biggest crisis of Starmer’s time as opposition leader, forcing sweeping changes in personnel and approach. The loss of Runcorn and Helsby to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK could be similarly bruising. Labour ought to start as favourites, having won this socially mixed marginal corner of Cheshire by a massive margin less than a year ago. But with polls showing a Labour slump, a Reform surge and a restive, dissatisfied public, all bets are off.

The Runcorn result will set the tone for this year’s round of local and mayoral elections. A Labour hold will take the pressure off a harried government; a Reform breakthrough will stoke the heat up further, boosting Farage’s claim to be parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn, and jangling the nerves of anxious Labour MPs in the restored “red wall”. While Farage may hurt Labour in Runcorn, it is the Conservatives who face the most pain in this year’s English local elections. Most are in blue-leaning parts of the Midlands and south, and the Tories swept the board when they were last contested in 2021, with Farage off the scene and the government riding a “vaccine bounce” in the polls. Nearly 1,000 Conservative councillors are up for re-election in May, and with Kemi Badenoch’s party polling below its disastrous showing last July, hundreds look set to lose their jobs. Nearly a year on from their worst ever general election result, the Conservatives still have further to fall.

Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existence

Several billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, a wet, salty world circled our sun. Then it collided, catastrophically, with another object and shattered into pieces.

One of these lumps became the asteroid Bennu whose minerals, recently returned to Earth by the US robot space probe OSIRIS-REx, have now been found to contain rich levels of complex chemicals that are critical for the existence of life.

Your job now is not to manage your wife’s feelings but to focus on your own behaviour

The question I am a man in my mid-50s, living with my wife and our children. Two years ago, I admitted to an affair, texting sex workers, watching porn and checking out women in public. I was not upfront with my wife and it badly affected her self-worth. Since then, I have been in therapy and some childhood issues have come to light around secrecy, lying and feeling unlovable. But I take responsibility for my actions. We have also done couples’ counselling and spent two difficult years working through it all while raising the family.

In recent months, things have been better. Trust has been rebuilding, we’ve felt closer and the future felt hopeful. But last week she caught me looking at a woman on the street in a way that upset her. I lied about it at first, then admitted it later. It reopened all the old wounds and I’m angry at myself for repeating the same damaging behaviours around dishonesty and ogling.

Kremlin’s most prized spies were sent in to Czechoslovakia to whip up the 1960s reform protests in a move then replicated across the eastern bloc

During the spring of 1968, as revolutionary sentiment began to grow in communist Czechoslovakia, a group of friendly foreigners began arriving in Prague, on flights from Helsinki and East Berlin, or by car from West Germany.

Among them were 11 western European men, a Swiss woman named Maria Weber and a Lebanese carpet dealer called Oganes Sarajian. They were all supporters of what would become known as the Prague Spring, an ultimately doomed attempt to build a more liberal and free ­version of socialism and escape from Moscow’s suffocating embrace. Many of the visitors sought to get close to the movement’s leading lights, offering support in the battle to reform communist rule.

Protesters pour into the streets from east coast to west in second wave of demonstrations this month – key US politics stories from Saturday 19 April at a glance

Protesters poured into the streets across the country again on Saturday in the second wave of demonstrations this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into ballot box action.

Large protests took place from east coast to west, in major cities like Washington, New York and Chicago, as well as Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, among many others. Americans abroad also signalled their opposition to the Trump agenda in the Irish capital of Dublin and other cities.

Opposition says trial was staged to entrench president Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule

A Tunisian court has handed down prison sentences of 13 to 66 years to politicians, businessmen and lawyers in a mass trial that opponents say is fabricated and a symbol of president Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule.

Businessman Kamel Ltaif received the longest sentence of 66 years on Saturday, while opposition politician Khayam Turki was given a 48-year jail term, a lawyer for the defendants said.

The actor and podcaster on her cringiest celebrity encounter, why musicians should be older and uglier, and the dumb stunt that changed her life

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What’s been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?

I knocked over Al Pacino at a party. It was at the head of UTA’s house back in maybe 2015. I’d stolen a bunch of food – they had really good wagyu steaks, so I took 10 wrapped in a cloth napkin, they were kind of bleeding. I bundled them in between my legs, underneath my miniskirt, and was shuffling as fast as I could out of the party when I knocked over Al Pacino. And then I left him on the ground, because the steaks flew out from under my skirt, leaving this bloody streak across the white floor. I grabbed the steaks and ran out of the party and texted Judd Apatow: “Sorry, I had to leave. I hope they catch that guy that knocked over Al Pacino.”

Three owners – from a gelato maker to a memorial mason – share what it’s like carrying on the family trade

Family businesses account for about 70% of Australian businesses, which means a lot of people’s colleagues are also their flesh and blood. While there can be additional stress when working with your parents, siblings and children, there’s also the opportunity for collaboration, creative expression and tradition. Here, three business owners share the journey of joining the family trade and what they have learned in the process.

Aditya Wahyu Harsono, father of infant with special needs, surprised at work despite valid visa through June 2026

An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that his case can proceed.

Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice. He is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May.

Member states are considering removing the country’s voting rights after its attempts to stymie support for Kyiv

The posters are going up all over Hungary. “Let’s not allow them to decide for us,” runs the slogan alongside three classic villains of Hungarian government propaganda.

They are: Ukraine’s wartime leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen; and Manfred Weber, the German politician who leads the centre-right European People’s party in the European parliament, which counts Hungary’s most potent opposition politician among its ranks.

As a new documentary explores Boarding School Syndrome, seven former pupils share their stories…

Boarded from the age of nine

From karate as a kid to swimming as an adult, Bonnie Tsui has always relished an active life. But when she started investigating muscles, she found this most durable tissue encapsulates who we are

My earliest memories of childhood involve hugging my dad, and also punching him. Let me explain. My father, who moved from Hong Kong to New York in the late 1960s, was a professional artist and a black belt in karate. When my brother and I were kids, he trained us up in his studio, to draw and paint and punch and kick like him. “I wanted to make you into little ninjas,” he told me a few months ago, with his big laugh, as we worked out with the heavy bag at his home in China, where he lives today. He’s 78 now, but he subscribes to much the same programme he did when I was in nappies. What I understood from a young age is that art and exercise went hand in hand – and that muscle was beautiful in form and function.

Our career as karate kids did not take off, since my brother and I were, and remain, constitutionally averse to conflict. But what did stick was a dedication to a life of physicality. We swam competitively, worked as lifeguards, taught swimming lessons, trained at the gym. My brother became a physical therapist and I became a journalist who writes about all kinds of things, much of it having to do with the art, science and culture of the body, and what it is to live a life in motion.

Premier League crown could be clinched on Sunday but the lack of jeopardy in recent weeks is the fault of others

Arne Slot was denied the perfect Feyenoord ending by PSV, when his team finished seven points behind their rivals, albeit having won the Dutch Cup. Eleven months on, he is poised to mark his first season as Liverpool’s head coach by becoming a Premier League champion and could seal the trophy by defeating a PSV and Manchester United legend, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and confirming Leicester’s relegation.

Thoughts of spite will not enter Slot’s mind, however. He has been reserved since arriving at Anfield, but fans would revel in completing a merited title triumph at the King Power on Sunday. The added needle is much needed because Liverpool’s superiority has made the title race tedious. Others are to blame for that.

PM vows not to end war before destroying Hamas, as Israeli strikes kill more than 90 people in 48 hours

Benjamin Netanyahu said again Saturday that Israel had “no choice” but to continue fighting in Gaza and will not end the war before destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

The Israeli prime minister also repeated his vow to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

With Peter Dutton’s views on climate change in the spotlight, the focus has turned onto whether there will be any policies to reduce emissions in the next decade

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The Coalition is refusing to say if it will introduce any policies to cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade as it pledges to unwind most climate measures introduced under Labor.

Peter Dutton’s position on the climate crisis came under scrutiny last week after he gave contradictory answers on whether he accepted mainstream climate science. Asked during a leaders’ debate on the ABC whether extreme weather events were worsening, the opposition leader said: “I don’t know because I’m not a scientist”.

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Dropping a Labor goal of 82% of electricity coming from renewable generation by 2030 and slowing the rollout of solar and windfarms, in part by scrapping a “rewiring the nation” fund to build new transmission connections. Instead, it says the country would rely on more fossil fuels – coal and gas-fired power – until it could lift a ban on nuclear energy and build taxpayer-owned nuclear generators, mostly after 2040.

Abolishing fines for car companies that do not meet targets to cut the average emissions from the new cars they sell.

Not supporting Labor’s 2030 emissions reduction target. Former diplomats say lowering the target would put Australia in breach of commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Opposing a joint Australia-Pacific bid to host a major UN climate summit in Adelaide next year.

Music journalist Ash London wasn’t looking for love when she took her seat at the Arias in 2016, but her stomach flipped when she saw a curly haired man in a black suit

• Find more stories from The moment I knew series here

Like most sane people, I’d always assumed “love at first sight” was a concept reserved solely for sappy romcoms and teenage diary musings. It certainly didn’t happen in real life, to real people, and it certainly couldn’t happen to me. I was entirely devoted to my career in radio and, after a particularly bad breakup, had all but sworn off love.

It was November 2016 and raining. I remember, because I’d just had my hair and makeup done. I cursed the grey Sydney sky that was quickly turning my hair frizzy as I raced to the Star casino, like I did every year around this time. It was the Aria music awards, which meant I’d soon be in a room with a few thousand people sipping free booze and growing increasingly raucous as the night progressed. This night was one for debauchery, drunkenness and maybe a cheeky pash on a dark dancefloor. It certainly wasn’t where you met your future husband.

Australian Diana Prazak was told she wouldn’t make it as a boxer. She’s just been inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame

The soft early evening spring light floods the room behind the world champion you’ve probably never heard of. In front of a big poster of a shirtless Bruce Lee adorning her wall, Diana Prazak smiles and laughs often as she talks about her most unlikely career and her road to the top.

The expatriate from Melbourne is arguably the most successful professional boxer that Australia has produced – she attained the ranking of best active professional boxer pound-for-pound in 2014 – but celebration of her world champion status remains disappointingly muted in her home country.

The seasonal change brings in me a mellowness and a desire to reflect that feels somehow spiritual, albeit in a secular way

For Christians, Easter is a remarkable time of new life, of resurrection and spiritual renewal. But those of a more secular persuasion can also find themselves beguiled by the restorative zeitgeist of this celebratory time of year.

In the northern hemisphere it’s spring, with its green shoots and brighter light. Down here, deep in the southern hemisphere, the transition is of a gentle autumnal splendour – of softer skies and a flourish of bronze in the deciduous treetops.

Organizers call for 11 million people to march and rally in this weekend’s effort to ‘protect democracy’

Protesters poured into the streets of cities and towns across the United States again on Saturday, in the second wave of protests this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into action at the ballot box.

By early afternoon, large protests were under way in Washington, New York and Chicago, with images of crowds cascading across social networks showing additional demonstrations in Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Pennsylvania, among others. Americans abroad also signaled their opposition to the Trump agenda in Dublin, Ireland, and other cities.

• ITIA responds after reminder about anti-doping rules
• Mark Petchey says that the statute is ‘unacceptable’

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has come under fire after it issued a reminder about anti-doping rules, saying players chosen to give samples must remain in full view of chaperones if they choose to take a shower first.

In a note sent to players via the tours that has found its way on to social media, the ITIA said although it had worked hard to ensure that showers after matches can amount to permissible delays to doping control it was not an “entitlement”. It requested players opting to freshen up first to strictly adhere to the requirement to stay in full view of the chaperone observing them at all times, and that failure to do so would be taken extremely seriously by the ITIA.

The Australian could leave after Spurs win the Europa League, while United may stick with their coach after winning nothing

Erik ten Hag has gone, but his shadow looms over English football still. The mistake was understandable enough: high on the euphoria of beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final, Manchester United renewed his contract. Three months into the new season, more than £180m spent on summer transfers, Ten Hag was dismissed with United 14th in the table on 11 points from nine games.

The sporting director, Dan Ashworth, and various members of Ten Hag’s backroom staff also left, at a total cost of £14.5m. Or, to put it another way, keeping Ten Hag cost United £200m and in effect undermined this season. Nobody wants to be caught in the Ten Hag trap.

• Championship leader will start race from 10th on grid
• Oscar Piastri qualifies second with George Russell third

His confidence in the car already wavering, the world championship leader, Lando Norris, now has to cope with another serious blow to his title ambitions after crashing out in qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, while his Red Bull rival Max Verstappen claimed pole position, only one-hundredth of a second clear of Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri.

Norris is notoriously self-critical and his costly error at the Jeddah circuit might well cause him to once more deliver a brutal self-examination. His own summation in the moments after the crash summed it up as he bluntly described himself as a “fucking idiot” over team radio.

Nobody seems to have told Aston Villa the season is winding down. At a boisterous, increasingly gleeful Villa Park Unai Emery’s side moved up to sixth in the Premier League with a relentless dismantling of Newcastle, who simply fell away in the second half, conceding three goals in the final 20 minutes of a chastening 4-1 defeat.

Newcastle remain in third and fought hard in the opening hour, after which life just seemed to catch up with them, Villa’s squad depth apparent as Emery shuffled his attacking substitutes with notable precision.

• England 59-7 Scotland
• Twickenham finale will decide destination of title

England felled Scotland in devastating fashion to set up a grand slam decider against France in the Women’s Six Nations where the Red Roses will bid for their seventh successive title.

John Mitchell’s side played some of their best rugby this tournament in the first half by scoring six tries with no reply. The rampant display set up the possibility of a record score against Scotland, which stands at an 89-0 thrashing in the 2011 Six Nations, but they could not produce the same rapid fire scoring in the second half to write a new page in the history books. They did, however, seal the team’s 33rd consecutive win in the tournament with a 59-7 victory.

The energy secretary has accused Reform UK’s leader of peddling dangerous falsehoods about renewable power

• Tories and Reform use the steel crisis to knock clean energy. They’re wrong: it will secure all our futures

Ed Miliband has torn into Nigel Farage and the Tories for peddling dangerous “nonsense and lies” by suggesting the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.

Cabinet ministers are determined to fight back against the way Reform UK and the Conservatives have unceremoniously lambasted the climate crisis agenda for what they believe are nakedly political reasons before important local elections next month.

• Defending champion loses first-round thriller 10-9
• Debutant Lei and Xiao exemplify China’s fine start

Kyren Wilson became the latest victim of snooker’s Crucible curse after a shock defeat on the opening day of the World Snooker Championship at the hands of Chinese sensation Lei Peifan – underlining the belief many have that this could finally be the year China crowns its first champion of the world.

Not since snooker’s most prestigious event moved to Sheffield in 1977 has a first-time winner of the event gone on to successfully defend the title. Wilson is now the 20th man on that list after his defence came to a shuddering halt within hours of this year’s tournament beginning, after the world No 39 produced a magnificent comeback victory.

Thousands gather in Parliament Square in a show of unity after supreme court judgment

After last week’s supreme court decision, activists had been worried that trans people might become fearful of going out in public in case they were abused.

They weren’t afraid in London on Saturday. Thousands of trans and non-binary people thronged Parliament Square, alongside families and supporters waving baby blue, white and pink flags to demonstrate their anger at the judges’ ruling.

Pete Townshend welcomes musician back into band after disagreement over his playing at Royal Albert Hall gig

Zak Starkey has been reinstated as The Who’s drummer just days after parting company with the band.

The group announced earlier this week that Starkey, the band’s drummer since 1996, was leaving over a disagreement about his playing at a Royal Albert Hall gig last month.

Former president spoke at commemoration for the 168 people who died in the 1995 attack by far-right extremist

Bill Clinton called on Americans to put aside “whose resentments matter most” and issued a defense of government employees as he returned to Oklahoma City on Saturday for a remembrance service for the 30th anniversary of the deadliest homegrown terrorist attack in US history.

“If our lives are going to be dominated by efforts to dominate people we disagree with, we’re going to put the 250-year-old march toward a more perfect union at risk,” he said. “None of us would ever get much done. Believe me, we’ve all got something to be mad about.”

The American author on the follow-up to her bestselling debut Such a Fun Age, why she loves characters you want to shake, and reading 160 novels for the Booker prize

When Arizona-raised novelist Kiley Reid, 37, debuted five years ago with Such a Fun Age, she attained the kind of commercial and critical success that can jinx a second book, even landing a spot on the 2020 Booker longlist. Instead, Come and Get It – which is published in paperback next month – fulfils the promise, pursuing some of the themes of that first work while also daring to be boldly different.

The story unfolds at the University of Arkansas, where wealth, class and race shape the yearnings and anxieties of a group of students and one equally flawed visiting professor. Reid, who has been teaching at the University of Michigan, is currently preparing to move to the Netherlands with her husband and young daughter. She is also on the judging panel for this year’s Booker prize.

Free trade is smashed to pieces, while just a couple of chicks he fancies are spared

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Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege

Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.

The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies.

• Lewandowski injury mars Barça’s 4-3 victory
• McTominay strikes as Napoli keep pressure on Inter

Barcelona fought back from 3-1 down to beat Celta Vigo 4-3 in a rollercoaster encounter, with a stoppage-time penalty by Raphinha extending their lead over Real Madrid at the top of La Liga to seven points.

Barcelona took the lead in the 12th minute through Ferran Torres but conceded an equaliser three minutes later when Wojciech Szczesny misread a cross and allowed Borja Iglesias to score. The Spanish forward then stunned the home fans when he scored two more goals in the second half, twice racing through to beat the keeper on his way to a hat-trick.

If green policy is going to survive the culture wars, it needs a new pitch – cleaner air, cheaper bills and healthier cities

For a decade, green activists in Britain have been congratulating themselves on their luck. Unlike in many countries in Europe, where motorists, farmers and rightwing groups have been driving anti-climate action, the UK has long enjoyed a comfortable political consensus on the subject. But conditions for a greenlash are assembling.

Most Britons still say they support climate efforts, but the price of decarbonising may at last be about to hit our wallets. Meanwhile, the Conservative party has come a long way since it sported a little green oak tree as its logo. Last month, Kemi Badenoch declared a full culture war against net zero, which she said couldn’t be achieved “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

The Premier League trophy Manchester City have proudly held for the past four years will be soon heading to one side of Stanley Park, but having exploded to life late against Everton they seized control of their Champions League destiny on the other. Nico O’Reilly and Mateo Kovacic sealed a win that even Pep Guardiola may not have seen coming to keep City on course for a 15th successive season among the European elite.

A goalless draw appeared the most likely outcome for much of a pedestrian contest, but a late surge, shaped by the contrasting impact of substitutes, allowed City to dominate and secure a ninth consecutive win here. Aston Villa’s visit to the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday represents a hugely significant moment in a troubled season for Guardiola and his team.