As I found during last week’s assisted dying debate, it’s not wrong to agree with the other side

It’s not often you find yourself nodding along with those with whom you normally profoundly disagree, and raising an eyebrow at the contributions of those you would count as political allies. But it was the position I found myself in listening to MPs debate assisted dying last week.

What to make of my outbreak of fervent agreement with Conservative Danny Kruger and DUP MP Ian Paisley? Some may see this as the mark of a repressed rightwinger, or a born-again social conservative. If you agree with a member of tribe X, you must de facto be part of that tribe, or so the argument goes.

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The WTA finals host revealed its commitment to women’s rights by jailing a female activist

If a record of sexual apartheid is not the ideal look for a nation that must still, occasionally, placate progressives, news of an extreme example – the lengthy imprisonment of Manahel al-Otaibi , a 29-year-old fitness instructor and women’s rights activist – has at least arrived too late to tarnish Saudi Arabia’s latest sporting triumph: buying up the Women’s Tennis Association finals.

In fact, given that country’s hectic promotional schedule, there could hardly have been a more convenient time for human rights organisations to report, as they did last week, that al-Otaibi whose circumstances were for months unknown, is serving 11 years in prison for the “terrorist” offences of wearing “indecent clothes” (ie, not an abaya) and supporting women’s rights. Her sister, Fouz al-Otaibi, fled the country in 2022 to avoid similar persecution. Fouz tweeted last week : “Why have my rights become terrorism, and why is the world silent?”

Longer sentences and court backlogs push 25% of prisoners in England and Wales into shared cells, adding to drug-use and violence

The scale of the prison overcrowding crisis has been laid bare by figures revealing that a quarter of prisoners in England and Wales have been sharing cells designed for one person with at least one other inmate.

According to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), 11,018 cells intended for single use were being shared by two prisoners, with a further 18 such cells shared by three inmates. The overall prison population – which has ballooned over recent decades because of longer sentences and court backlogs – stood at about 88,000 when the statistics were originally compiled in late February.

I travelled the UK interviewing teenage boys. I found openness, thoughtfulness, honesty and vulnerability on topics from sex to pornography, feelings and isolation

It was two separate conversations that made me think properly about what life might be like as a boy these days. The first was about a 13-year-old, the son of a friend, who said he had been rounded on for making a small (and, he thought, complimentary) comment about a girl’s haircut.

He told his mother that the girl’s friends were outraged: “Oh my God, you can’t say that about someone’s appearance. That’s so bad. You can’t talk about a girl like that!”

Legacy can be found in the lives you touch and your impact on others

The question I am a 54-year-old woman with a good career and a stable marriage. I live across the globe from my parents, my siblings and their kids and I am child-free. I have reduced contact with them to brief and polite birthday and Christmas messages, which they respond to, but we have no relationship or ongoing contact as such. It is close to estrangement, and I have no desire to try to repair this. I am child-free because I always feared repeating my family’s parenting style and had no sense of my childhood as a positive experience.

I have become preoccupied with the idea of a legacy of a life well lived. I have always placed high value on social contribution and working hard. But, as I increasingly ponder the likelihood of dying alone and without children, I have started to become quite critical about the point of striving in my career, and how and what I should be doing with my time. I feel “being forgotten” is a realistic proposition – and it leads me to wonder whether this is liberating, and I can stop striving, do as I please, or should I strive harder and find a way of leaving my mark, ensuring I have a life that will mean something? Is this just an indulgent existential crisis? Do I need to just get over myself?

The UK regulator has been criticised by grieving families and internet abuse survivors for failing to engage with them

Bereaved parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of “preventable, life-changing harm” linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech firms to account.

Mariano Janin, whose ­daughter Mia, 14, killed herself after online bullying , and the parents of Oliver Stephens, 13, who was murdered after a dispute on social media , are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a ­consultation process for tackling online harms.

The health service took a turn for the worse under David Cameron and Keir Starmer has said nothing of improving the nurses’ lot

Reading of Dan Poulter’s defection (“ Top Tory MP defects to Labour in fury at NHS crisis ”) was of particular interest to me: I am a mental health nurse in the NHS; I too cover the A&E department in my local hospital; and I work for the same NHS trust. He lists many reasons why he is appalled at the state of the NHS, and does well to highlight the suffering that mental health patients are forced to go through, thanks to lack of resources and outsourcing to private providers.

However, it was laughable to read of his praise for David Cameron’s Conservative party, with its “commitment to the NHS”. Poulter speaks of his concern over health inequalities, yet it was Cameron’s party that unleashed austerity and only advanced such inequalities. Poor mental health is overwhelmingly experienced by those from a lower socioeconomic standing. Many people were accelerated into poverty thanks to Cameron’s policies.

Britain has turned out in force to vote for change. Whenever the Tories go to the country, we will be ready to provide it

Rishi Sunak might have been too scared to put his name on the ballot this week, but voters sent him a clear message in the local elections anyway. Across the country, people turned out to vote for change – from the manufacturing heartlands of Derby to industrial Redditch and Thurrock in Essex. In Aldershot, home of the British army, Labour won Rushmoor borough council, ending 24 years of Tory rule. Ten more police and crime commissioners – which, as a former chief prosecutor, makes me incredibly proud. And in York and North Yorkshire, the first Labour mayor, in the prime minister’s back garden.

Victories in traditional Tory territory across the country are important to me. It’s not just about the numbers, though of course they matter: it’s the choice of the electorate to turn their back on 14 years of decline and division, and embrace national renewal with Labour.

Victory for the Tees Valley mayor should show the way for the Tories to refind their election mojo

Rishi Sunak will have been relieved when Ben Houchen was declared the winner in the Tees Valley mayoral election, but he can’t disguise the fact that these were very bad election results.

Council elections are difficult to interpret – there are a host of local factors at play. The best thing to look at is what is known as national equivalent vote share. The BBC’s estimate at the time of writing is that Labour got 34% and the Conservatives 25%.