Guardian photojournalist Sean Smith has been following the Reform UK leader as he criss-crosses the country on a busy schedule of walkabouts and meet-ups with prospective councillors and supporters before the May elections

Nigel Farage and Reform are campaigning around the country in the local elections and consistently polling higher than the other parties. Reform’s campaign started with a series of rallies for supporters and candidates, where they asked attenders who were not already members to join the party and put their names forward as candidates. Now Farage is on a busy schedule of walkabouts and meet-ups with prospective councillors and supporters around the country.

Nigel Farage shows his colours.

David Osenton almost died because of medical mistakes and delays, but new rule allowed Karen to demand a second opinion

• Martha’s rule may have saved more than 500 lives in England since 2024

For six awful days last summer, as her father, David, got progressively sicker in the cardiac ward of the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, Karen Osenton would read the poster above his bed telling patients about their right under Martha’s rule to ask for a second opinion.

Her father, a retired engineer in his early 70s who was normally extremely fit, was by then thin, jaundiced and could barely lift his head from the pillow. But his bed was right beside the nurses’ station, surely they would notice if he needed more urgent treatment?

(Heavenly)
With strong words for Keir Starmer, the Irish rave-rap trio remain unbowed by the controversy around them – and yet this is a more ruminative record than you might expect

Five tracks into Fenian, the listener is confronted by the sound of rapper Móglaí Bap expressing a desire to go and live off-grid outside a small village in County Meath. He does this in characteristic style – prefaced with the line “run along, fuck’s sake, I’m sick of you cunts” – but still, it comes as a surprise. After all, the tales of drugged-out madness on Kneecap’s previous album, 2024’s Fine Art, took place in an exclusively urban environment: at one juncture Móglaí Bap’s bandmate Mo Chara claimed that his preferred milieu was “the snug of a dimly-lit, shit, run-down pub”, presumably one like the lairy Belfast boozer in which much of the album was set. Nothing about Kneecap has given the impression of a band given to wistfully pining after a simple bucolic life.

And yet, who can blame him for wanting to switch off and get away from it all? The two years since Fine Art’s release have been tumultuous for the Irish rave-rap trio, and it’s difficult to discern how much their soaring profile has to do with their music. Fine Art was warmly received – it was potent, funny and original – but quickly drowned out by the din of controversy that began when Mo Chara was alleged to have displayed a Hezbollah flag on stage at a London gig in November 2024. He was later charged with terror offences, which he denied – Kneecap said they have never supported Hezbollah and “condemn all attacks on civilians, always” – and the case was ultimately thrown out of court. In the interim, there were cancelled gigs and tours, a ban from entering Canada and Hungary (decisions Kneecap strongly opposed), and calls from both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch for Kneecap’s 2025 Glastonbury set to be dropped. Badenoch had already quarrelled with them over their lurid republicanism when she was business secretary, trying to cancel a grant they’d been given – and Kneecap prevailed in that case, too.

Feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff in your life? Understanding why we hold on to things is the first step in finding a healthy way to let go

Most of us have a complicated relationship with our stuff. There’s the endless collection of chargers and wires, the overflowing “everything drawer” in the kitchen, the tote bag of tote bags. Clutter is not a character flaw. It is, more often than not, a conversation your home is having with you about something deeper.

As an integrative therapist, I regularly hear that conversation. Clutter rarely arrives as just a tidying problem. It carries anxiety, grief, identity, shame and transition. Understanding what lies beneath is often the first step to being free of it.

Prices at the pump have leapt since the start of the conflict – but clinging to fossil fuels will only prolong the pain

The car is perhaps the closest thing Germany has to a national symbol. For this reason, the success of the auto industry and the happiness of motorists has long been a barometer for the standing of the Federal Republic.

Since the beginning of the war on Iran, German news has been filled with stories about drivers. Journalists have filed breathless dispatches from petrol stations all over the country, reporting scenes of anger and frustration at the hike in fuel prices.

Tania Roettger is a journalist based in Berlin

At world-first Santa Marta climate meeting, delegates say it was ‘euphoric’ to finally be focusing on concrete solutions

After a landmark climate meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia, where nearly 60 countries gathered to work out how to end the production and use of planet-heating fossil fuels, what have we learned?

Apology comes after head of Met police said Green party leader risked undermining public confidence in his officers

Zack Polanski has apologised for sharing a social media post critical of police after the Golders Green stabbings, after the head of the Metropolitan police said the Green leader risked undermining public confidence in his officers.

Polanski, who leads the Greens in England and Wales, said he was sorry for having shared someone else’s post “in haste”.

Claire Freemantle accused of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving when four-wheel drive hit school in 2023

The driver of a four-wheel drive that crashed into a south-west London primary school has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving after two eight-year-old girls were killed.

Claire Freemantle, 49, is accused of two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and seven counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after the incident at the Study Preparatory school in Wimbledon in July 2023.

Leah Spasova from Oxfordshire fought for 10 years to obtain tubal ligation procedure, while men could get vasectomies

• Analysis: questions over how accessible procedure should be

A woman denied a permanent form of birth control on the NHS over fears she might regret it, while men were allowed contraceptive procedures, has won her case with the health ombudsman.

Leah Spasova, a psychologist from Oxfordshire, spent a decade fighting to obtain female sterilisation at her local trust, a procedure that blocks or seals the fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy. By contrast, men can undergo a vasectomy, a procedure that stops sperm from being released.

US president says European countries are ‘absolutely horrible’ to refuse to support operations in strait of Hormuz

• Europe live – latest updates

Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw US troops from Italy and Spain, a day after saying he was looking at reducing the number deployed in Germany.

The US president’s threat to Germany came after its chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said America was being “humiliated” by Iran, and follows weeks of criticism by Trump of Nato allies for not helping to reopen the strait of Hormuz.