Featuring stars including Riz Ahmed and Nabhaan Rizwan, the event aims to celebrate the ‘rich tapestry of Muslim experiences via the medium of film’

The UK’s first major film festival dedicated to Muslim cinema announced its inaugural lineup on Tuesday, with a slew of award-winning films featuring the likes of Riz Ahmed and Informer’s Nabhaan Rizwan .

Ahmed, winner of an Oscar for best live action short film, will appear in Dammi, a short film directed by Yann Demange, the French film-maker best known for Top Boy and Northern Ireland-set drama ’71. Ahmed co-stars with Isabelle Adjani in a story about a man confronting his French and Algerian heritage on a trip to Paris. Rizwan plays the lead in In Camera, a British feature directed by Naqqash Khalid that screened at the London film festival, as an actor struggling to make a career in the film industry in the face of repeated rejections.

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Why the hell would anyone go out and campaign for Reclaim? Now I’ll never have the chance to find out

While I was out, a canvasser came to the door and asked Mr Z to sign a nomination form for Laurence Fox to get on to the ballot for the London mayoral election. Mr Z said no, and the guy said: “You don’t have to vote for him! It’s just to get him on the ballot.” Mr Z said he didn’t want Laurence Fox on the ballot, and the Reclaim party supporter went elsewhere for a signature – needlessly, as it turned out, because Fox filled in the form incorrectly and his candidacy was rejected. Fox has blamed “political corruption” and intends to appeal. While I, quite emphatically, don’t want Laurence Fox on the ballot either, I am sad that this makes it unlikely I’ll meet any more Reclaim canvassers, as I would invite them in, entice them even with a Jammie Dodger, and try to get to the bottom of what the hell they think they’re playing at.

As local and mayoral elections approach, the doorstep once again becomes the crucible of political possibility. You might luck out and get an actual big beast of Westminster ringing your bell; it’s never happened to me, but it must have happened to someone. How else would politicians hear all those things they say they do “on the doorstep”? More likely, it’ll be a local activist, and if you’re over 40, you’ll know exactly what to do: shoo them away if they’re not from your preferred party, and shoo them away nicely, but faster, if they are. There’s a time and a place for having an anodyne, general conversation about politics with a stranger you mainly agree with. That time is never, and the place is definitely not your doorstep.

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Michaela community school, run by former government social mobility tsar Katharine Birbalsingh, introduced ban last March

A ban on prayer rituals at one of the highest-performing state schools in England, famous for its strict discipline code and high-profile headteacher, was not unlawful, a high court judge has ruled.

The case against Michaela community school in Brent, north-west London, was brought by a Muslim pupil, known only as TTT in court proceedings, who claimed the ban was discriminatory and breached her right to religious freedom.

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It is unlikely that the company’s owners will invest more or it will be fully nationalised, but its structure needs a rethink

Set your watches: Ofwat, the water regulator, has fixed the date for when it will publish its so-called “draft determination” – in other words, its first view on how far each water and wastewater company should be allowed to raise its bills in the five-year period that starts next spring.

Wednesday 12 June is the day when the outside world will be able to look at the assessment that caused the current owners of Thames to say a fortnight ago that Ofwat had made their company “uninvestable” and they wouldn’t be putting in another penny. Thames’s murky future may become slightly less murky at that point.

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Closure between junctions 9 and 10 will be the second of five planned for the motorway

The second weekend closure of the M25 will take place between 10 and 13 May, National Highways has confirmed, with a seven-mile stretch of the road between junctions 9 and 10 in Surrey due to be shut.

In March a five-mile stretch of the motorway between junctions 10 and 11 was closed for a three-day period , the longest planned closure on the road since it was opened in 1986.

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London law firm admits to error but judge says final order cannot be overturned

A couple were divorced by mistake after solicitors at a leading law firm made a computer error – but a senior judge has said it cannot be overturned.

The couple, referred to as Mr and Mrs Williams by the high court, were married for 21 years until they separated in 2023.

Solicitors at the London firm Vardags, headed by Ayesha Vardag, the self-styled “diva of divorce”, used an online portal to mistakenly apply for a final order for the couple, who were still attempting to agree financial arrangements for their split.

Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division, explained lawyers had intended to apply for a divorce for another client “but inadvertently opened the electronic case file in ‘Williams v Williams’ and proceeded to apply for a final order in that case”.

He said solicitors at Vardags, who were representing the wife, used the online portal “without the instruction or authority of their client”. He said the online system operated with “its now customary speed” and granted the order divorcing the Williamses within 21 minutes.

The solicitors realised their mistake two days later and applied to the high court to rescind the final divorce order. They described the error as being simply that of someone at Vardags “clicking the wrong button” and argued that as the final order was applied for by mistake, it should be set aside.

But McFarlane rejected the application and said: “There is a strong public policy interest in respecting the certainty and finality that flows from a final divorce order and maintaining the status quo that it has established.”

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Jamie Lloyd’s revival takes home seven awards including for Nicole Scherzinger but film and TV stars in other productions miss out

Jamie Lloyd’s bombastic reimagining of Sunset Boulevard starring Nicole Scherzinger was the standout show at this year’s Olivier awards, with seven wins on an evening when productions with celebrity talent were often overlooked.

The Savoy theatre adaptation of Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film about the dark side of the Hollywood dream took home best actor in a musical for Tom Francis and best actress in a musical for Scherzinger. Lloyd – described as creating “ a stupendous sense of reinvention ” by the Guardian – won best director.

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Khan says he will spend extra £10m on crisis if elected to third term as mayor as numbers reach highest level in a decade

Sadiq Khan has pledged to eliminate rough sleeping in London, where the numbers on the streets have reached the highest level in a decade.

If elected to a historic third term as mayor of London, Khan plans to spend an extra £10m on what has been described as a growing humanitarian crisis in the city.

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Sarah Jessica Parker is the latest A-lister to lavish our fair isles with praise, from the transport networks to the eggs. I guess it’s easy to overlook problems when you’re a wealthy tourist

‘I want to know Jubilee, Piccadilly, Northern, I want to know Edgware … Your system here is exquisite.” That is Sarah Jessica Parker raving about the tube . “Goodge” she added, in wonderment, rolling the word around in her mouth like a mint humbug. She is in London, appearing in Plaza Suite at the Savoy theatre, having the time of her life and appreciating breakfast foods. “There’s these eggs here … that I go mad for, they’re called Burford, they have those orange yolks … oh my God … I love your rashers here,” she told the chef Ruth Rogers on Rogers’ podcast. Her Instagram features black cabs, graffiti and her learning which bus “gets me where I need to go. On time.”

Meanwhile, Zendaya has been “spotted patiently queueing for a Gail’s coffee and pastry ” and doing a big shop in New Malden Waitrose; Vogue has declared her “ one sausage roll away ” from honorary Briton status.

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