Bleary-eyed in pyjamas in a new film, Jacinda Ardern’s pleas for compassion are hard to ignore. But in real crises, the fallibility of politicians can be terrifying

The camera catches Jacinda Ardern in her pyjamas, bleary-eyed with exhaustion. It follows her wiping crumbs off the worktops, breastfeeding, trying to take a phone call while simultaneously retrieving something her curious toddler has picked up off her desk. They are scenes many frazzled, distracted working parents will recognise, except that at the time she was the prime minister of New Zealand and these home movies – shot on her husband’s phone, originally for family consumption – have since been turned into a documentary premiering in British cinemas this December.

Prime Minister, the movie, is the latest step in Ardern’s campaign for politicians to be allowed to reclaim their humanity, which broadly means the public accepting that they are grappling with the same private pressures as the rest of us (and no doubt similarly making a hash of it at times). It was the message of her recent memoir, A Different Kind of Power, and in some ways of her time in office, made only more urgent lately by the avalanche of violent threats and abuse heaped on anyone in public life – as if by getting elected they had become instantly dehumanised.

It used to be all boozy lunches and late-night carousing. Now it’s hyperbaric chambers and longevity chat. Andrew Carnie, CEO of the private club, explains how life and trends have changed since the Covid era

Friday night in the north of England. On the ninth floor of the old Granada Studios, a very chi-chi crowd is drinking tequila and eating crisps. Not Walkers out of the bag, mind, but canapes of individual crisps with creme fraiche and generous dollops of caviar. A young woman – leather shorts, chunky boots, neon lime nails, artfully messy bob – winks at me from the other side of the silver tray. “Ooh, caviar. Very posh for Manchester.”

Soho House’s 48th members’ club has caused quite the stir. Thirty years after Nick Jones opened the first club in Soho, London, the first north of England outpost of the empire is raising eyebrows. An exclusive club, in the city that AJP Taylor described as “the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery”. (The home, after all, of the Guardian.) An open-air rooftop pool, in the climate that fostered the textile industry because the rain created the perfect cool, damp conditions for spinning cotton. Will it work?

It’s love at first bite for diners. From cheese puffs to tuna eclairs, chefs are putting some of their best ideas on the snack menu

Elliot’s in east London has many hip credentials: the blond-wood colour scheme, the off-sale natural wine bottles, LCD Soundsystem and David Byrne playing at just the right decibel. The menu also features the right buzzwords, such as “small plates” and “wood grill”.

But first comes “snacks”. There are classics: focaccia, olives, anchovies on toast. But more creative options include potato flatbreads with creme fraiche and trout roe, mangalitsa saltimbocca with quince, and what became (and has stayed) the Hackney restaurant’s signature dish since around 2012, Isle of Mull cheese puffs: plump, gooey croquettes filled with Scottish cheddar and comté, deep-fried until crisp and topped with yet more grated cheddar. Only two other dishes have never left the menu: fried potatoes with aïoli and cheesecake.

Our cartoonist on a simple win over Spurs that boosted the Gunners’ title hopes, smug Australians and more

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At Maple Farm, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. All due to the vision of a group determined to accelerate its recovery

The manically melodic song of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, but not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a single bird could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders, pointing to the woodland around us. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba, the group’s engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”

Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at Maple Farm, after just four years, the results are already visible, and audible. The farm used to be a retirement home for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so who could blame young people for wanting to take matters into their own hands?

Peter Ruis discusses the chain’s £800m reboot, bringing ‘radical relevance’ – and that dance-driven Christmas ad

You may think the department store has had its day. Debenhams and Beales have left the high street, House of Fraser has closed almost two-thirds of its stores and Fenwick exited its prime London site.

Peter Ruis, the managing director of John Lewis, has a different view. After closing 16 stores during the pandemic and shedding thousands of jobs as it fought for survival, he says expansion is now “definitely something we are looking at”. The 161-year-old retailer is spending £800m by 2029 on giving its 36 remaining outlets a reboot.

Unpaid carers were pushed into debt and distress and hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money wasted

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Repeated failures by Tory ministers and top welfare officials pushed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt and distress, and led to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being wasted, a devastating review has concluded.

The independent review of carer’s allowance benefit overpayments identified “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules.

Reform leader denies racist or antisemitic behaviour ‘with intent’ at school, but says he can’t remember everything from 49 years ago

• Nigel Farage’s shifting answers on school-days racism claims – a timeline

Nigel Farage has broken his silence nearly a week after he was accused by about 20 people of racism and antisemitism as a teenager, by saying he “never directly, really tried to go and hurt anybody”.

His remarks came after the publication of a detailed investigation by the Guardian in which many of his school contemporaries claimed to be victims of, or witnesses to, repeated incidents of deeply offensive behaviour.

Dutch writer Rutger Bregman says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed

The BBC has been plunged into a new row over its treatment of Donald Trump, after an academic accused it of censoring his remarks about alleged corruption by the US president.

Rutger Bregman, a Dutch author and historian, said the BBC had removed a “key line” from a flagship address he had been invited to give by the corporation.

Government sets out plans to lower the threshold within the Soft Drinks Industry Levy to 4.5g per 100ml, down from 5g

• Reeves expected to reveal cut in growth forecasts for next five years in budget

The “painful truth” is that sterling captures the confidence of international investors in the UK economy, writes Professor Costas Milas of the University of Liverpool’s Management School.

Professor Milas tells us:

Investors, of course, hate economic policy uncertainty. From a historical point of view (going back to 1965!) there is an inverse relationship between year-on-year growth (strength) of the sterling effective exchange rate and Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) in the UK, the latter proxied by economic policy uncertainty relative to its five-year moving average (the correlation coefficient is -0.43).

I also note (sadly) that economic policy uncertainty in 2025 is higher than that of 2016 in relative historical terms...

“We explained how our legislation is working, it is not discriminatory and it is not aimed at American companies. We simply need to do more explanation in this regard. We’ll engage in that process.”

“They rule out diesel gas and you gotta have batteries here by 2035. But Europe doesn’t make batteries! Only certain countries make batteries and Europe is not one of them. They gotta think better about themselves ... come on! Think correctly.”