Forgive me if I’m not congratulating officers for investigating Andrew now – instead of, say, many years ago when they were with him in Jeffrey Epstein’s house

How noble that Thames Valley police has let it be known that its misconduct-in-public-office investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is also considering potential offences including corruption and sexual misconduct. On Friday, it made a public appeal for potential victims and witnesses to come forward.

Obviously, the best time for the police to have started quietly asking questions was shortly after Metropolitan police officers – Andrew’s close protection detail – ferried him back from a London nightclub to a house with some other friends in their 40s, and one young-looking 17-year-old girl. Then waited outside till he decided it was time to come home. But as the saying goes: the second-best time is now. No wait, the second-best time was probably when Andrew paid a reported £12m to settle out of court with Virginia Giuffre, despite maintaining he had no recollection of meeting her. (He denies any wrongdoing.) Ach no, the second-best time was when leaked emails suggest the former prince passed his Met close protection officer Giuffre’s birthdate and US social security number and asked him to carry out checks on her. Sorry, wrong again, the second-best time was a full 12 years ago, when Giuffre alleged that she was sex trafficked to and assaulted by Andrew on that night mentioned above, as well as on two other occasions.

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

British army is 80-90% short of drones as military exercise aims to build on European defence strategy

Deep in Charing Cross underground station, in the disused terminus of the Jubilee line, a secret Nato command bunker has this week been discreetly at work. Dozens of mostly British soldiers were engaged in a war game defending Estonia from a Russian invasion in 2030, unbeknownst to commuters and tourists bustling above.

The secret chambers are behind two sets of normally locked, metal double doors. A red glow at the bottom of the escalator beyond is the first sign of troops below; next are mocked up newspaper covers pasted over ageing adverts. A British Nato force has deployed to Estonia they blare, in response to a Russian massing of troops on the border.

Addicted to your devices? According to experts, not all screen time is created equal. Here are some healthier ways to spend time online

The average UK adult spends around 7.5 hours a day on a screen, whether that’s a phone, laptop, games console or TV. That figure may even be conservative, particularly for those whose jobs require them to be online. As concern around screen time mounts, the instinctive response has been to demonise it. The reality, however, is more nuanced. As the Guardian’s video games editor and author of Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun, Keza MacDonald, recently put it: “Not all screen time is created equal.”

Spending an hour learning a language on Duolingo is not the same as flicking through dozens of short-form videos on TikTok. Video-calling a friend is not equivalent to trolling someone on Facebook. The difference lies in how consciously we engage.

His starring role in Richard Gadd’s brutal toxic masculinity series is a far cry from his days as Billy Elliot. The actor opens up about gruelling shoots, dancing on toilets – and why he can’t ever just chill out

Not many actors are relieved when they have to film an eye-poppingly explicit sex scene, but that was the case with Jamie Bell on Half Man. His role involved chemsex in saunas, dogging in car parks and illicit quickies in library loos. “Honestly, I was so grateful to be shooting that stuff and not fucking 16-page dialogue scenes, where you’re emoting and it’s so intense,” says Bell. “On days when my character had to have sex with random people, I’d think: ‘Thank God!’ Frankly, it came as a welcome reprieve.”

Richard Gadd’s first TV show since the Emmy-gobbling global Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, Half Man chronicles the combustible, codependent relationship between two “brothers from another lover”. Niall (Bell) is bookish, bullied and closeted. Ruben (Gadd) is the swaggeringly violent ex-con son of his mother’s girlfriend. The six-part drama – which reaches its devastating finale next week – traces the inseparable duo’s toxic relationship across three decades.

Departing Manchester City manager has left huge imprint but equally stands alone in his willingness to adapt

When Pep Guardiola arrived in English football in the summer of 2016, there was a degree of scepticism. The quality of the football produced by his Barcelona had been extraordinary – and it’s perhaps difficult now, 18 years on, to remember the impact that side had when they first emerged, how incomprehensible the focus on passing and the manipulation of space seemed.

But his Bayern Munich had not won the Champions League and it was reasonable enough to ask whether that very precise, technically accomplished style would be as effective amid the hurly-burly of an English winter as it had been in Spain and Germany.

Call it a mix of collectivism and entrepreneurialism or just an overarching vibe, but the mayor’s philosophy could be on the way to Westminster

Among the underrated later work of those revered sons of Manchester the Smiths, there is a completely jaw-dropping song simply titled London. Full of fury and excitement, it depicts a Mancunian as he boards a train, travelling to the capital full of ambition and hope, but also gripped by a gnawing ambivalence. Andy Burnham, whose love of the band is hardly a surprise, may well recognise not only its defining theme, but the song’s accidental encapsulation of his decision to try to make his way to the House of Commons, in a line crooned by Morrissey in slightly mocking tones: “And do you think you’ve made the right decision this time?”

Even if some observers only give him a 45% chance of winning, it looks like Burnham has, particularly when it comes to his pitch for power. Eleven years ago, let us not forget, a somewhat different incarnation of the future Greater Manchester mayor was one of four candidates for the Labour leadership, along with Jeremy Corbyn, and chose to stage one of his launch events at the City of London HQ of the auditing firm Ernst & Young. There he said he might back further benefit cuts, and claimed that too many people associated Labour with “giving people who don’t want to help themselves an easy ride”. In 2022, he told me this was the result of bad advice: “I listened to people that I shouldn’t have, really. It was tone-deaf … it wasn’t me. It wasn’t authentic.”

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

London mayor accused of ‘putting politics above public safety’ for rejecting deal to use AI in intelligence analysis

• UK politics live – latest updates

Palantir has accused Sadiq Khan of “putting politics above public safety” after the London mayor blocked its £50m contract with the Metropolitan police in a move that has also led to tensions inside Labour over its involvement with the US tech company.

Louis Mosley, who heads Palantir in the UK and Europe, accused Khan of politicising procurement after he rejected a two-year deal for Scotland Yard to use AI to process intelligence in criminal investigations, as first revealed by the Guardian. Mosley said: “What Londoners value is not being mugged, not being raped by a serving police officer.”

Defence secretary also asks if billionaire’s company may have benefited from Iran war, which Reform leader initially supported

• UK politics live – latest updates

• Business live – latest updates

The defence secretary, John Healey, has urged Nigel Farage to provide transparency about the £5m gift he received from a billionaire businessman, in particular over whether any of the sum could have been linked to Russia-connected profits.

In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Healey also asked him to address the possibility that the war against Iran might boost the revenues of AML Global, an aviation fuel company owned by Christopher Harborne, who gave Farage the £5m in 2024. Farage initially supported the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Judge says it is ‘disappointing’ there will have to be retrial of prisoners accused over Lostprophets singer’s death

The jury in the trial of two prisoners accused of murdering the disgraced former Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has been discharged for legal reasons.

The judge at Leeds crown court told jurors on Friday that there would be a retrial. “Very reluctantly, I’m going to discharge you and the case will have to be retried,” said Mr Justice Hilliard.

• Tuchel ‘surprised’ by Maguire’s reaction to being left out

• Live reaction | Head coach explains why he picked Toney

Thomas Tuchel has named his England squad for this summer’s World Cup, handing a shock call-up to Ivan Toney, picking Djed Spence over the exiled Trent Alexander-Arnold and, as expected, finding no space for Harry Maguire, Cole Palmer and Phil Foden.

Tuchel, charged with leading England to glory in Canada, Mexico and the US, called players about his plans on Wednesday and Thursday and confirmed his selection on Friday.