The Joy of Six 1485

"Yet again, we’re all caught up with the fame-encrusted stories of rich, powerful men. The women and their reported life-scarring encounters with Epstein and his set are an afterthought. At best, they’re treated as a salacious backdrop to the fortunes of men whom society has lionised and – with epic irony – thought better than the rest of us." Michelle Cook says the reaction to the Epstein files spotlights how badly we are still failing women and girls.

"As DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] expands its footprint, it’s making its cruelty manifest in suburban areas like Roxbury – towns that might have once felt insulated from the brutality and chaos that immigration agents have unleashed in US cities." Schuyler Mitchell reports that the suburbs are fighting back against ICE's plans to turn warehouses into detention centers.

Peter Kellner writes an open letter to Labour's next prime minister: "It will be crucial to learn from Starmer's mistakes. Listing them is the easy bit. The crisis that has engulfed him deserves an explanation. How did he end up disliked by so many voters and alienating so many of his own MPs?"

Martha Gill argues that enthusiasts for apprenticeships haven’t worked out they fit into a modern economy: "The story of apprenticeships is a long struggle to make a scheme built for a time of trades and manufacturing fit into a modern flexible service economy – a wobbly journey of correction and overcorrection."

"One of the biggest barriers he sees for aspiring cricketers is that their parents often struggle to afford the prohibitive cost of kit, which can quickly spiral into hundreds of pounds." The former England bowler Saj Mahmood talks about making cricket to all with Chris Britt-Searle.

Chris Lovegrove has a site devoted to the world of Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles.