Take five – a news summary for anxious times

Another week, another exercise in national bamboozlement…

I dream of composing a Friday missive that doesn’t begin with a big sigh and a comment on the sheer volume of the news over the last seven days. I’ll likely keep imagining it. But I can assure you, this week is not that week.

In fact, the biggest challenge today hasn’t been selecting a mere five stories you might have missed. It’s been selecting fewer than five stories purely about the UK government’s predilection for scandal. Resignations! Rwanda! Northern Ireland! The ECHR! It’s almost as if the PM has returned to his strategy of making “so many gaffes that no one knows what to concentrate on.” Sigh.

So, in the full knowledge that BJ will likely have started another 82 fires in the moments between me writing this and hitting send, here’s your weekly round-up of happenings. As ever, I’m following up your news headlines with five good news stories – blimey, do we need them – and five long reads that offer further context, insight or comment as to the state of the world right now.

Tread carefully please – again, it’s been quite a week…