Who is running the government’s ‘growth school’ for civil servants? The answer surpassed my worst fears

Forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, but I seem to recall the country voting the Tories out last year. Part of the reason, if I remember correctly, was their staggering incompetence and insouciance, epitomised by Liz Truss’s mini-budget. That catastrophe was, like Truss’s political career, formed and steered by the neoliberal junktanks of Tufton Street.

But now I begin to doubt my recollections. We booted them out through the front door, right? Yet they still appear to be in the house. Perhaps they came round the back. After taking an interest in the Department for Business and Trade’s “growth school” speaker sessions for civil servants, I sent a freedom of information request. Given that Keir Starmer, like Truss, has placed his growth “mission” at the centre of policy, and that this department is responsible for delivering it, the instruction given to its officials is crucial to the economic and political direction the country takes.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The Guardian’s climate assembly with George Monbiot and special guests On 16 September, join George Monbiot, Mikaela Loach, Emma Pinchbeck and Zack Polanski as they discuss the forces driving the big climate pushback, with a welcome from Katharine Viner and special address from Feargal Sharkey

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Some days it can feel as if climate catastrophe is inevitable. But history is full of cases – such as the banning of whaling and CFCs – that show humanity can come together to avert disaster

Once upon a time, the world was powered by whale. Oil made from whale blubber burns cleanly and well, though it smells strongly of fish. It was, for a while, the perfect fuel. To meet the growing demand, whales were hunted almost to extinction.

And then we discovered that oil could come from the ground. Lamps once lit by rendered blubber were swiftly changed over to run on what Americans call kerosene and the British call paraffin. Later, those lamps were changed to run on electricity, and instead of burning oil in the lamps themselves, we began to burn it in power plants miles away.

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The French coach on his partnership with Serena, why he parted ways with Naomi Osaka and how to break the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly

Patrick Mouratoglou was notably absent from this year’s US Open. Since his breakout advising Marcos Baghdatis, who he guided to the Australian Open final in 2006, Mouratoglou has distinguished himself as a tennis guru – with pros and prospects making the pilgrimage to his academy on the French Riviera. But it was his partnership with Serena Williams, who won 10 of her 23 grand slam singles titles after pairing with the Frenchman, that helped cement Mouratoglou as a coaching great.

In between touring clients at the moment, Mouratoglou caught up with me near the end of the US Open to talk about Naomi Osaka’s resurgence, Williams’s weight loss and what it will take to break Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s duopoly in the men’s game.

Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Patrick Mouratoglou is working with Motorola’s Behind the Icons campaign.

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Boasting two-sink kitchens, London’s Tower Court is the UK’s first project tailored for the Haredi Jewish community – but its generous proportions and outside space for religious observance are a boon for all residents

The intricacies of religious doctrine might not be a typical feature of the English planning system. But, in a corner of north-east London, the specific teachings of one ultra-Orthodox community have led to more generous council housing for everyone.

Approaching the handsome brick blocks of Tower Court in Hackney, the first clue that something might be out of the ordinary can be spotted in the balconies. Rather than sticking out in a regular grid, they dance across the facade at staggered intervals, each surrounded by a skeletal metal frame. Some have been walled in with fencing panels, while others are shielded with reed matting or shrouded with fake plastic leaves. It looks like a vertical display of makeshift garden sheds.

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Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
Rattling through her 80s hits the singer is clearly revelling in the nostalgia – in a showcase that makes her a strong candidate for the Glastonbury legends slot

‘Who remembers the 80s? Good – I don’t!” Cheerful, barefoot and sparkling in sequins, Belinda Carlisle is walking her infatuated audience down memory lane. Each song on this greatest hits tour comes with a timestamp and a story, and right now she’s introducing Mad About You, the 1986 single that transformed her from a member of record-breaking all-female rock band the Go-Go’s into a glossy solo pop star with the love songs to match. Tonight, as back then, Carlisle’s distinctive, shivering vibrato finds a streak of hedonism inside its lyrics about dizzy infatuation.

This show hits shuffle on the big singles and key album tracks that Carlisle and her smiley five-piece band have been touring for years, and it opens with real attack: the title track of 1989 album Runaway Horses is earthy and elemental, Carlisle blasting big rock “whoa-oh-oh”s over punchy drums and a juddering riff. She clearly delights in performance, camping it up and pretending to faint during I Get Weak, and swinging an imaginary lasso for the moody, loosely psychedelic Circles in the Sand. An uncertain start to La Luna briefly breaks the spell, but when Carlisle is in full power, it’s as if a wind-machine is always blowing in her direction.

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Parviz Sabeti crafted an anonymous new life for his family – but now he faces a $225m lawsuit for atrocities committed in prisons in Tehran and elsewhere

Neighbors in the upscale Florida community of Windermere know them as Peter and Nancy, the seemingly friendly retired couple they wave to on morning walks, and who always appear to enjoy visits from their two high-flying grown daughters, one a respected professor of science at Harvard University.

Yet behind the high walls of their $3.6m lakefront mansion lies a darker, more closely guarded reality: “Peter” is actually Parviz Sabeti, the alleged head of secret police and chief torturer of the former Shah of Iran’s pre-revolutionary government, now facing a $225m lawsuit in Florida for atrocities committed in prisons in Tehran and elsewhere.

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In an address delivered before the person who killed Kirk had even been identified, Donald Trump blamed ‘the radical left’ for the shooting

• Police search for suspect amid condemnation of ‘targeted’ killing

• ‘What have we become?’: shock across US political parties

A UK offshoot of a US conservative group set up by Charlie Kirk is to hold a vigil in London after he was shot dead, reports the PA news agency.

Turning Point UK has said its activists will gather on Friday evening by the Montgomery statue in Whitehall and called on others to “join us in remembering Charlie”.

It’s absolutely shocking, we’re heartbroken over here in the UK.

My thoughts this evening are with the loved ones of Charlie Kirk.

It is heartbreaking that a young family has been robbed of a father and a husband.

Political violence has no place in our societies.

Our thoughts and condolences are with his family.

An atrocious murder, a deep wound for democracy and for those who believe in freedom.

My condolences to his family, to his loved ones, and to the American conservative community.

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Soap-based injuries, bleak festive deaths, Hugh Bonneville vomiting blood: we look back on 15 years of highs and lows as the frothy period drama comes to an end with its final spin-off film

Prepare for stiff upper lips to wobble. Clutch monogrammed hankies for period-appropriate eye-dabbing. After 15 years on our screens, the Downton Abbey saga is about to hop in its vintage Rolls and drive off into the soft-focus sunset. The third and final film spin-off, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, is released this Friday, accompanied by a forelock-tugging farewell ITV documentary.

For six series, Downton bestrode the Sunday night schedules like a Grade II-listed colossus. Writer Julian Fellowes’s upstairs-downstairs creation followed entitled aristos and their salt-of-the-earth servants at a fictional country pile. Sure, the dialogue was clumsy, the plots soapy and the historical exposition clunked like a stately home’s antique radiators. Yet somehow, it didn’t matter.

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