Council spending cuts are forcing studios and venues to close, driving out the city’s creative businesses

Last year, the city of Leeds held a year-long celebration of culture , complete with festivals, newly commissioned works of art and community projects. More than 1,000 events took place, with hundreds of volunteers and local schools taking part.

This year, however, artists and ­creatives in the West Yorkshire city are being forced out of their workshops and galleries, and say the dwindling number of spaces is crushing Leeds’s creative scene.

For every nine weeks you delay your pension goes up by about 1%, but for some it could end up costing them more

• UK state pensions: are older retirees getting a bad deal?

You can boost your weekly state pension by delaying when you start to draw it. For some people this will represent a very good deal – but it all depends on how long you live for once you start receiving it.

We each have a date from which we can claim our state pension. Once we do, we can receive a weekly sum based on our national insurance contributions and the level of the state pension at the time.

‘Heavy-handed’ crackdown ignores underlying reasons for failure to attend classes, say critics

Some schools in England are sending police to the homes of children who are persistently absent, or warning them their parents may go to prison if their attendance doesn’t improve, the Observer has learned.

Headteachers say they are now under intense pressure from the government to turn around the crisis in attendance, with a record 150,000 children at state schools classed as severely absent in 2022-23. From September, all state schools in England will have to share their attendance records every day with the Department for Education.

As he demonstrated at the launch of his pledge cards, the Labour leader has succeeded in de-risking perceptions of his party

Who scares wins. That has been the motto of many, often successful Conservative election campaigns. Fear may not be an edifying strategy for securing power, but the Tories have repeatedly demonstrated that it can be highly effective. Time and again, they have persuaded voters that Labour is just too risky to be trusted with government. The “red scare” of 1924, whipped up with the aid of the fraudulent Zinoviev letter, brought an abrupt end to the short life of the first Labour government . The “tax bombshells” dropped on Neil Kinnock in 1992 exploded his dreams of becoming prime minister . Tory claims that Ed Miliband would wobble atop a “ coalition of chaos ” helped to floor that Labour hopeful in 2015. The big scare has often been a winning formula for the Tories.

So it was pretty much inevitable that Rishi Sunak would press a quivering finger on the fear button. Not least because he is so short of any other ideas for making the general election look competitive for his party. He’s previously tried marketing himself as Mr Stability, Mr Delivery and Mr Change. None of these iterations has put a dent in Labour’s headline poll ratings. They insistently place Sir Keir Starmer’s party about 20 points ahead of the Tories . In his most recent attempt at a relaunch, an exercise he performs almost as often as he changes his undies, the Tory leader tried another costume. This time he cloaked himself in the garb of Mr Security. In what Downing Street puffed as a big speech, the prime minister tried to chill the country’s bones with the warning that Britain is entering a very dangerous period . His ostensible subject was the threat from “an axis of authoritarian states”. His electoral purpose was to try to build an argument that voters will be safer sticking with him than taking a punt on Labour.

As the prestige flower event begins, horticulturalists are shown how a waterlogged patch can help counter climate crisis

Gardeners should “embrace the bog” that has formed in backyards across the country after record rain, a designer at this week’s Chelsea flower show has said.

Naomi Slade will unveil her design for a floodproof garden on 21 May, showing that even with the unusually wet weather seen in recent months, British gardens can still be full of colourful flowers.

The chancellor will have good news to pass on this week. But he knows the cost of living crisis may not be over yet

Jeremy Hunt knows it. Rachel Reeves knows it too. The Office for National Statistics will come bearing good news on Wednesday when it releases the latest inflation figures. The only real question is just how good the news will be.

In the year to March, annual inflation as measured by the consumer prices index stood at 3.2% . The figure for April will be a lot lower and if Hunt gets lucky it might even fall as low as the government’s 2% target.

Education secretary Gillian Keegan, Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron oppose move, while university leaders warn of economic and cultural impact

Rishi Sunak is facing a cabinet revolt over plans to scrap a graduate visa scheme that allows overseas students to live and work in the UK for up to two years after graduation.

Under pressure from some on the right of his party to demonstrate that the Tories are tougher on immigration than Labour, Downing Street is considering further restricting or even ending the graduate scheme , which some believe can be used as a backdoor entry route to the UK.

Waiting lists are at a record high, almost double since 2020, with heart disease being the largest cause of premature death in deprived areas

Fifteen hospital trusts across England each have more than 200 patients waiting longer than a year for heart procedures, NHS figures reveal.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) warns that heart care waiting lists are now at a record high , reaching 414,596 at the end of March 2024 in England, almost double what it was in 2020. The number of people waiting longer than a year for heart tests and treatments has risen to 10,893. Four years ago, the figure was just 53.

Passengers were left abandoned and humiliated after operator banned staff from providing assistance

Eurostar has reversed a new accessibility policy that left a wheelchair user stranded and has retrained its London staff following pressure from the Observer .

Travellers with disabilities claimed that they would be barred from Eurostar services after the company banned its London staff from pushing passenger wheelchairs . Those who require assistance were told they must travel with a companion or cancel their ticket if they were unable to access services unaided, according to passengers who contacted the Observer .