Politics
Democratic socialist Melat Kiros topples a nearly 30-year incumbent to win Colorado House primary
Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated 15-term Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on Tuesday, delivering one of the biggest shocks of the Democratic primary season amid a growing streak of wins for the insurgent left.
Kiros’ win in the contest for Colorado’s 1st District topples a 68-year-old representative who had held the seat since before her 29-year-old challenger was born.
It’s a victory that echoes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) stunning 2018 upset over 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York, and delivers democratic socialists fresh momentum.
DeGette’s loss, after representing the district since 1997, seemed unthinkable in the state just months ago, but Kiros rode the same anti-incumbent wave that swept through New York’s Democratic primaries last week, where Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman were ousted in a dramatic show of the left’s growing strength.
The defeat is a stunning one for the Democratic establishment, though warning signs had been building for months inside DeGette’s campaign, with allies privately acknowledging the race was tightening and the representative’s team spending weeks urging national Democrats and allied groups to come to her aid.
Kiros launched her campaign nearly a year ago, framing it from the outset as a generational reckoning with the Democratic establishment. She cast DeGette, a longtime progressive who served as an impeachment manager against President Donald Trump, as a corporate-backed incumbent who was out of step with her constituents, and called for a new era of progressive leadership in Congress.
Kiros’ campaign drew major outside support from progressive leaders, including endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Working Families Party, as well as backing from the candidates who upended New York’s Democratic delegation last week.
Her win marks the seventh primary victory this cycle for Justice Democrats, the progressive group that recruited and backed her, making 2026 the organization’s most successful primary year to date.
“We are so proud to be sending Colorado’s first Justice Democrat to Congress,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats. “Melat built a movement that inspired Denverites to remember they themselves have the power to transform what kind of Democratic Party they want to be represented by. Melat and our candidates continue winning this cycle because Democratic voters are finally getting leaders acting on their demands.”
Down the final stretch of the campaign, DeGette’s allies scrambled to hold off Kiros’ rise, with outside groups pouring roughly $2.3 million into the race over the final month, including $1.3 million in the race’s final days. DeGette’s side held a nearly three-to-one spending advantage down the stretch.
DeGette also secured last-minute endorsement videos from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and progressive Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who like DeGette was a manager of Trump’s impeachments. Still, that wasn’t enough to help her keep her seat.
The new class of hard-left members of Congress could prove a tough group to wrangle for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), particularly if Democrats win a narrow majority in the House this fall.
“If the day comes to vote and he continues taking corporate PAC money, I won’t be voting for him,” Kiros said in an interview prior to Tuesday’s win.
In London, it’s almost impossible to date without speaking therapy. Attachment styles come up on first dates. Arguments are framed as ‘boundary violations’. Compatibility becomes a question of emotional availability.
I’ve lost count of the number of dates where an ex was described as ‘avoidant’ before I’d even learned what music the other person liked.
When I refer to “therapy-speak”, I don’t mean therapy itself or careful psychological practice. I mean the growing vocabulary of terms like gaslighting, narcissist, holding space and doing the work that has moved from consulting rooms into dating apps, podcasts and social media.
Some of this shift reflects real progress. Mental health language has helped many people name patterns that once stayed buried under shame and given them permission to expect emotional safety in relationships.
But as that vocabulary spreads globally through social media and dating culture, it also carries cultural assumptions that don’t always travel with it.
Many popular Western psychological frameworks prioritise autonomy, privacy and boundaries. Those ideas can be valuable, but they also emerged within particular Western traditions and don’t always translate cleanly into cultures organised around family interdependence.
What my Sri Lankan upbringing made me notice
I grew up Sri Lankan, and one of the biggest differences I noticed living in London is how private relationships are expected to be.
In my community, problems were rarely treated as something that existed purely between two people. They were spoken about: aunties asked questions, friends offered blunt opinions, cousins challenged your version of events.
I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t always comfortable. But love was never just a two-person project, it existed within a network.
I remember the first time an ex-boyfriend told me he had a boundary around being offered advice. He was struggling financially. I responded instinctively and began suggesting practical ways to help.
He gently explained that unsolicited advice made him feel worse and that he needed space to process things alone.
If I were struggling financially, my family would sit me down and map out 10 possible solutions. They wouldn’t ask whether I’d consented to input. That’s what they perceive to be love.
What struck me was we were speaking the same words, but different cultural languages of love.
In urban Britain, saying “I have a boundary” is widely understood as emotionally literate and self-respecting. But in collectivist cultures, that phrasing can feel distancing, even rejecting.
The meaning shifts depending on the cultural grammar of care.
Love exists inside culture
Not all relational frameworks start from the idea that the individual is the central unit of wellbeing. In Māori culture in Aotearoa New Zealand, for example, the concept of whanaungatanga emphasises kinship, relationships and collective responsibility.
Yet many therapeutic models prioritise individuation and autonomy. And while those values can be important, they aren’t the only way to define healthy love.
Psychologists have raised concerns about the casual expansion of clinical language in everyday conversation. Research on “concept creep”, coined by psychologist Nick Haslam in 2016, suggests that harm-related language can gradually broaden, sometimes stretching to cover behaviours that fall within ordinary human imperfection.
When diagnostic terms are treated as universal, they can also override cultural context. A family stepping in can be reframed as enmeshment. Direct advice can be interpreted as emotional unsafety. Close involvement may be labelled ‘unhealthy’ simply because it doesn’t centre independence.
Dating is already a negotiation between two worldviews. When therapy language is applied without cultural sensitivity, things can get sticky.
None of this is an argument against therapy. It’s an argument for recognising that therapeutic language is culturally situated.
A person can be fluent in psychological terminology and still misunderstand the cultural logic of someone else’s behaviour.
For many of us, love unfolds inside migration histories, extended families and inherited expectations about duty and care. Those traditions deserve to be understood on their own terms, not automatically translated through the language of Western psychology.
If we want healthier relationships across cultures, we may need to slow down before we diagnose and to ask what support, privacy and care mean in someone else’s world – because the way we speak about love shapes the way we practise it.
The UK’s landmark Tobacco and Vapes Act, which became law in April this year (and has since been buried by a typically, and very modern, frenetic news cycle), was hailed as a triumph for public health. By permanently phasing out the legal sale of cigarettes to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009, it promises to create the world’s first ‘smoke-free generation’.
It’s difficult (though not impossible) to object to this from a medical perspective. Smoking remains one of the leading preventable causes of death in Britain. Fewer smokers will mean fewer cancer patients, fewer heart attacks, fewer loved ones losing family members prematurely and, in theory, less of a burden on the NHS. Put like that, it all seems pretty admirable.
But it’s important to look beyond the medical perspective to what this legislation represents. It is, perhaps, the clearest expression yet of the creeping sanitisation of Britain that has been underway over the past two to three decades.
Sanitisation is an entirely sensible principle in the right context. We sanitise hospitals to prevent infection. We sanitise kitchens to stop disease. But increasingly, the instinct to sanitise has escaped those settings and begun to shape everyday life itself. More and more, our politics is driven by the assumption that unhealthy pleasures should not merely be discouraged, but gradually engineered out of existence altogether.
I’m not trying to defend cigarettes – but they don’t really deserve it, do they? The ban is significant because it asks a different question from previous tobacco legislation. Successive governments raised duties, banned advertising and introduced plain packaging in order to reduce smoking. The new law goes a step further, though. It envisages a future in which smoking simply ceases to exist as a legal choice for successive generations of adults.
This is incredible. Whether you support the outcome or not, it reflects a new understanding of the relationship between citizen and state. Government is no longer content to inform us of the risks involved with smoking, or even to nudge us towards better choices through ruinous taxation on proscribed goods. It is now outright deciding more and more how we should be allowed to lead our lives.
Tobacco proscription is far from an isolated case. Scotland introduced minimum-unit pricing for alcohol. Sugar is taxed in soft drinks. Junk-food advertising faces ever-tighter restrictions. And supermarkets are told where sweets may be displayed.
Each measure taken by itself may seem pretty sensible – alcoholism, for instance, has historically been high in Scotland. But taken together, they reveal a broader philosophy. Health is no longer simply one consideration among many. It has become the guiding principle for policymakers, the main lens through which they view ordinary life.
Look at the steady ratcheting-up of alcohol taxation and pricing. Defenders will understandably point to the health benefits of pricing people out of excessive drinking. However, there have been massive social costs that are rarely spoken about.
Meeting friends at the pub has become prohibitively expensive for many people, accelerating the decline of an institution that has long been one of Britain’s great social levellers. As pubs close, high streets lose yet another reason for people to gather, while more socialising retreats into the private home – or disappears altogether. At a time when loneliness, anxiety and depression are widely recognised as defining features of modern life, it seems oddly self-defeating to make one of our oldest and most accessible forms of community ever more difficult to afford.
This carries consequences beyond public health. A civilisation cannot be measured solely by reductions in smoking prevalence, obesity or alcohol consumption. Human beings should not be treated as optimisation projects. We are soulful creatures, dancing animals, as Kurt Vonnegut put it. So let us dance! Or, at least, don’t dare to stand in the way as we do so. We need the unexpected, the excessive and the gloriously imperfect. Because some of the things that make life so rich and enjoyable (and at times simply bearable) are, by definition, a little indulgent. A long evening in the pub with friends is unlikely to impress a public-health policymaker. Yet these things endure because they bring people together, create memories – they feed our souls.
Public-health analysis is exceptionally good at measuring costs to the NHS or years of life gained. It is much less capable of measuring the value of conviviality, ritual, celebration or simple pleasure. What metric would you use to measure the value of lingering over another pint with friends; or standing outside smoking with a couple of co-workers, released for a moment from the day’s mundanity; or of sitting in your garden with a nice Scotch and a cheeky smoke at the end of the day. There is no real calculation for what is lost when life becomes incrementally cleaner, safer and more carefully managed.
The danger is not that Britain suddenly becomes joyless. This kind of sanitisation can be a subtler thing. Many interventions might appear modest and reasonable (though I wouldn’t describe the Tobacco and Vapes Act as either), and many restrictions are introduced in pursuit of a worthy objective. But they accumulate over time. Life’s rough edges are smoothed away.
And where does this health-policymaking logic ultimately lead? If the government sees its principal role as maximising healthy life expectancy, there will always be another habit to discourage, another risk factor to regulate and another pleasure whose costs can be quantified. Leaving your house can be risky, you know (if memory serves, there was a time in the not-so-distant past when we were indeed banned from doing that).
None of this is an argument against reducing smoking or informing people about genuine risks. But there is a profound difference between helping adults make informed decisions and gradually deciding which decisions adults ought no longer to be permitted to make at all.
The smoke-free generation may well prove healthier than those who came before it. Lung cancer and heart disease will probably fall; younger generations will probably, on average, be more athletically capable than us oldies. But the legislation also marks another step in a broader cultural journey, one in which Britain increasingly seeks to sanitise everyday life. The question is not whether we will become physically healthier – or, at least, less ill. We almost certainly will. It is whether, in our pursuit of longer lives, we are slowly forgetting what makes life rich enough to be worth prolonging in the first place.
James Dixon is a Glasgow-based novelist, poet and playwright.
Progressive state Rep. Manny Rutinel will take on GOP Rep. Gabe Evans this fall, setting up a contentious general election in one of Democrats’ top pickup targets — and giving Republicans the candidate they hoped to face.
Rutinel defeated the more-moderate former state Rep. Shannon Bird in Tuesday’s primary for Colorado’s 8th District, bolstered by big spending from his campaign and its allies, including prominent Latino groups that see Rutinel as the best candidate to court the key voting bloc back to Democrats. The district is 40 percent Latino.
But Republicans believe they have a better chance at beating Rutinel than they would have Bird in the battleground seat. They’ve boosted pictures of the progressive rallying alongside democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and are quickly recycling statements from Bird’s allies who said Rutinel would be unable to win in November.
Rutinel has softened his positions on some of the left’s top issues, including his previous support for Medicare for All and opposition to fracking.
The primary was defined by the Democratic Party’s ongoing ideological civil war. While Bird racked up endorsements from moderate establishment Democratic groups, like EMILYs List and the centrist Blue Dogs, Rutinel was able to capitalize on a committee vote Bird took as a state legislator that he argued didn’t do enough to stand up to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Democrats remain bullish they can flip the district, which President Donald Trump won by less than a 2-point margin in 2024. Democrats’ top House super PAC has already reserved millions of dollars in ads ahead of November.
Meanwhile, Evans, a freshman Republican who flipped the district for his party in 2024, has stockpiled $3.4 million for the general election as Democrats duked it out in the primary.
The Supreme Court struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties on Tuesday, a win for Republicans that will fundamentally change how tens of millions of dollars are spent in congressional elections.
The decision will have an almost immediate impact on the midterms. Removing the limit on coordinated spending effectively gives candidates direct control over a far greater amount of money being spent on their races. It is also likely to increase the flood of political advertising that hits the airwaves each fall.
The 6-3 decision, which divided the court along its usual ideological lines, held that the limits violate the First Amendment.
The decision is a blow to Democrats, who argued that eliminating the limit on coordination would put more power into the hands of large donors who can cut bigger checks to party committees than to candidates. Republicans tend to get more money from large donors, while Democrats have been more reliant on small-dollar donors.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, called the limits a “severe infringement on First Amendment-protected political speech.” He also argued the ruling eliminating the limits could bolster political parties generally.
“To uphold the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits here could therefore help consign political parties to continued second-tier status as compared to outside groups,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Weakened political parties distort the political system.”
President Donald Trump hailed the ruling allowing parties to spend unlimited amounts in coordination with individual campaigns.
“The Supreme Court just took restrictions off political spending!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case seeking to overturn the limits in 2022 alongside now-Vice President J.D. Vance’s Senate campaign. Trump’s Justice Department declined to defend the law in court, while Democratic groups intervened to oppose the lawsuit.
“By striking down these unconstitutional caps on coordinated spending, the Court has restored core political speech and ensured parties can compete on a level playing field,” NRSC Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said in a joint statement. “We are ready to fully support our candidates and put them in the strongest possible position to win in 2026 and beyond.”
Democrats, who are already staring down substantial disadvantage in party fundraising this midterm cycle and are worried that the ruling will only amplify the impact of that disparity, were quick to deride the decision Tuesday.
“Today’s ruling is a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a joint statement.
The ruling strengthens the parties themselves, allowing them to directly support their preferred candidates in a way that could empower their roles in the political ecosystem — and potentially weaken the influence of super PACs. Party committees on both sides have been preparing for the possibility for months and the decision is likely to have an immediate impact on campaign spending ahead of the November midterms.
Previously, coordinated spending between candidates and party committees, such as the NRCC or the DCCC, was capped, with the specific amounts depending on the size of the district or state. Those limits no longer apply.
That significantly alters the campaign finance landscape because parties can accept far larger donations than individual candidates — $44,300 per year for national party committees compared with $3,500 per cycle for candidates. Removing the limit on coordinated spending effectively gives candidates the ability to control a far greater sum of money that is being spent on their race.
That could also substantially change the makeup of political advertising on television, because candidates get far lower rates on TV ads than other groups. If their coordinated efforts with campaigns get the similarly low rate, they would have far more cash to tap to flood the airwaves, while super PACs will still have to pay a higher rate. As a result, campaigns might spend more of their budget on TV advertising, while super PACs may be more likely to pick up other campaigning costs, such as mailers and digital advertising.
Democrats have largely had the advantage in candidate fundraising, which has generally given them a leg up in battlegrounds when candidate fundraising was the most important. But NRSC has slightly more cash on hand than the DSCC, according to recent campaign finance reports, while the Republican National Committee has wildly outraised the DNC. Those party funds could now give the GOP the financial advantage in key states.
The court’s decision additionally eliminates the need for parties to mount their own independent expenditure arms, where they have traditionally spent tens of millions of dollars.
The decision is the latest in a series of blows the high court has dealt to campaign finance regulation over the past two decades. The 2010 Citizens United and Speechnow.org decisions enabled the rise of super PACs with no limit on donations. In 2014, the court struck down aggregate limits on individual donations. And in 2022, it struck down limits on candidates using donor funds to repay personal loans they had made to their campaigns.
“Today’s decision follows a string of disastrous campaign finance rulings from the Roberts Court that began with Citizens United,” Michael Beckel, director of money-in-politics reform at Issue One, said in a statement. “By eliminating the limits that have long governed how much money parties can spend in coordination with candidates, the Supreme Court has further empowered wealthy donors and special interests with outsized influence in elections.”
Singer Gracie Abrams has opened up about her relationship with actor Paul Mescal in an interview with The New York Times’ Popcast.
Rumours that the pair were dating began in 2024. They have since been photographed together at this year’s Bafta Awards, which some called their first “hard launch”.
They were also seen at the 2026 Golden Globes and the most recent Oscars.
The singer, whose partner helped to write song Imaginary Friend for her upcoming album Daughter From Hell, was asked whether the collaboration might invite more prying into their previously private relationship.
“I don’t like the feeling of hiding,” she shared on the podcast.
That’s not to say she doesn’t want to maintain some boundaries – “I also love privacy where it feels like the right thing,” she stated.
On the topic of public scrutiny about her private life, she said: “I always try to assume the absolute worst-case scenario of everything, and then anything else is pleasant”.
After all, she continued: “If you know how happy your experience was making something or how much you learned about yourself or your partner or whatever the thing is, it’s like, no amount of hate or trolling or whatever could take that away.”
She described her relationship as “a part of my life that brings me so much peace and joy… I’m not going to pretend like that’s not true, but I also think it’s not like an open-door policy.”
She added that working with partner Paul on an album wasn’t as huge a leap for the couple as some might expect.
“That was so fun to write together… That wasn’t some groundbreaking event for us”, she said on the episode.
“We have a very creative home with friends who are so good at what they do and everyone feels happy to share that with one another.”
Daughter From Hell will be released on July 17. You can watch the full Popcast interview here.
If you’re looking for something to fill the void between now and September’s very promising-looking Sense and Sensibility release, it might be time to give an underappreciated Lady Susan adaptation a go.
As a committed Austen fan, my top two on-screen period versions have long been the basically-perfect 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice series and 2016′s Love And Friendship.
But while I think a lot of fans are with me on the BBC take, I’ve seen a lot less buzz around Whit Stillman’s masterpiece – despite its 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and multiple awards.
Perhaps that’s because the wild late-teens writing it’s based on is rarely read, though that, too, should be rectified IMO.
The Love and Friendship movie is based on Lady Susan. I’m not really sure why it’s got the name; there is a story by Austen called Love and Friendship, but though it also features grasping, scheming women, the movie’s plot is clearly based on the “little-known novella”.
Still, the only thing that matters is our Suze. Played by Kate Beckinsale, she’s a ruthless, conniving, cruel and self-serving manipulator – who gets absolutely everything she’s ever wanted.
The Regency marriage market, after all, had all of those traits too.
The book (well, epistolary novella) comes from the young, cynical mind of an Austen who isn’t as concerned about mass-market appeal as she is making her friends and family laugh. The movie feels similar.
You will not swoon as Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) brainlessly squawks the words “Church” and “Hill” around a terrified teen. Your knees won’t buckle when Susan’s friend, Alicia (Chloë Sevigny) sneaks around her older husband (Stephen Fry).
Nor will you sigh longingly when you watch the recently-widowed Lady Susan backstab her way to that sweetest of lovers: solvency.
But you will howl laughing at the absurdity of all of this – the brutal weaponisation of manners, gentlemanly duty, and less-than-gentlemanly urges.
That’s because at her heart, Austen knows love is stupidly simple and very complex. It’s the silliest and most serious topic in the world, and in both her and Stillman’s hands, it becomes the funniest, too.
Love and Friendship is available on Disney+.
Nigel Farage is “dead in the water” and will have to quit as Reform UK leader, according to Piers Morgan.
The broadcaster said Farage is “rattled” by questions about the £5 million he accepted from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire and did not publicly declare.
The Reform boss has insisted the money, which he received months before becoming an MP in 2024, was a “gift” which he would spend on his personal security.
He has also described it as a “reward” for campaigning for Brexit, and last week even suggested he could spend it on Ferraris.
Parliament’s sleaze watchdog has launched an investigation into the issue, which is expected to report back soon and could see Farage suspended from the Commons if he is found to have broken rules on the declaration of donations.
On the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Morgan said Farage’s failure to shut down the row meant time was now running out for him.
He said: “Nigel Farage, I think, is dead in the water.
“I think this £5 million bung he took from this crypto tycoon in Thailand, he still can’t get his story straight about why.
“Originally it was about security, then it was a reward for Brexit. Now he says it was just a gift and he can spend it on Ferraris, like all men of the people would say.
“You can see how rattled he is by the questions he’s getting [and] they’re not going to go away.”
He added: “Reform, I think, are in real trouble. I think their leader’s going to have to go.”
In a car crash BBC interview last week, Farage insisted that “no one cares” about his £5m gift.
He said: “Let’s be clear: it’s a personal gift, I can spend it on cars if I want to. It’s entirely up to me.
“But there is a specific reason for this. I have been physically the most attacked and endangered politician for now well over a decade.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
After the UK set a new maximum temperature record for June over three consecutive days last week, many of us are now enjoying the cooler weather.
The week-long heatwave – which saw red and amber heat health alerts in place across much of England and Wales – culminated in a high of 37.3°C at Santon Downham in Suffolk on 26 June (the hottest temperature recorded for this time of year).
Multiple schools across southern England closed or allowed pupils to head home earlier than normal due to the extreme temperatures. Public transport was also disrupted in some areas.
While this week’s generally looking a lot more settled on the weather front, it seems another heatwave is making its way to London sooner than many might’ve hoped.
When is the next London heatwave?
Friday 3 July will see highs of 27°C in London, with the same again forecast for 4 July, climbing to 28°C on 5 July and 30°C on 6 July, according to BBC Weather.
From 7-12th July, the capital is expected to remain hot with temperatures floating around the 30°C mark.
The Met Office’s long-range forecast for 3-12 July suggests “high pressure will dominate across England and Wales … bringing dry and warm conditions with plenty of sunshine for most”.
“Temperatures will rise through the period, perhaps becoming very warm or hot in places,” it added.
As it stands there are no heat health alerts in place, however this may well change as the week progresses.
When is a heatwave officially declared?
Heatwaves are declared when a location experiences at least three consecutive days where it meets – or exceeds – a ‘heatwave temperature threshold’.
These thresholds vary across the UK. In London, for example, the temperature threshold is 28°C.
The Met Office previously said that hotter summers are becoming more likely in the UK in general.
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The Good Life actor Dame Penelope Keith has died aged 86.
In a statement, her family said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that Dame Penelope Keith died peacefully whilst living with cancer at her home in Surrey, where she had lived for more than 50 years.
“The family is grateful for the care and support she received throughout her treatments, and ask that their privacy be respected at this time.”
Aside from playing Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life, the actor also starred as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To The Manor Born.
Speaking of her To The Manor Born role with The Guardian in 2013, she said: “I loved it because we had to do all our own stunts.
“I am a country girl at heart, and I got to ride horses again, to learn about bee keeping, to drive a two-tonne Rolls-Royce with impossible gears; I scaled a five-bar gate with a picnic hamper to flee a bull.”
On X, fans have already begun expressing their grief at her loss.
“So very sad, a wonderful actress,” a reply to the BBC’s post about the news reads.
“She was so unique: loved her,” another said.
She was so unique: loved her.
— Yvonne Wilson (@YvonneWils53911) June 29, 2026
Writer James Hogg, who interviewed Dame Keith for his biography of Good Life co-star Richard Briers, said in an Instagram post: “She was one of the first people I interviewed for my biography of Richard Briers and, as expected, she was incredibly charming, witty, and generous. She was truly a remarkable actress.
“Richard himself was so impressed by her and Paul Eddington’s performances as Margo and Jerry Leadbetter in The Good Life that he encouraged the writers to expand their roles and focus the show more on the four of them, which they did to great success.
“She will be greatly missed.”
Dame Keith was awarded a CBE, OBE, and damehood throughout her life.
She also won two BAFTAS and an Olivier award.
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Kemi Badenoch has been criticised after comparing the female allies around Andy Burnham to his “handmaidens”.
The Tory leader said they were merely “window dressing” as Labour once again prepares to make a man its leader.
Burnham is widely expected to succeed Keir Starmer after the PM announced he was resigning last Monday.
The new MP for Makerfield is currently the only person to formally announce his intention to run to be the next Labour leader and de facto prime minister.
If he gets into No.10, as expected, it means Labour will have missed another opportunity to appoint its first female leader.
At a press conference on Monday, Badenoch – the Conservatives’ fourth female leader – tore into Labour for still not choosing a woman to lead the party.
Asked about comments reported by the Spectator that some in Labour think Burnham would be the party’s first female leader in all but sex, Badenoch replied: “I don’t know what to say.
“The idea that Andy Burnham is Labour’s first female prime minister shows that that party still doesn’t know what a woman is.”
The Tories have often accused Labour of not “knowing what a woman is” amid culture wars around transgender people’s rights.
Badenoch continued: “But I’ve also found it very interesting how Labour women have been so much in a hurry to carry his bags and be his handmaiden and be at the front of his, of his, his photo pool.
“Why would you allow yourselves to be used as window dressing in this way?”
Her use of “handmaiden” likely refers to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian hit novel and the TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale, where women’s rights are completely eroded.
Burnham has been pictured surrounded by female aides on a handful of occasions, and is expected to appoint women MPs to key roles in government to counterbalance Labour’s lack of female leaders.
He has a strong body of support from influential women in the party, including ex-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, former transport secretary Louise Haigh and deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell.
In response to Badenoch’s speech, key Burnham ally Anneliese Midgley wrote on X: “Stay classy, Kemi.”
A female Labour source told HuffPost UK: “Is she for real? Does she just say this stuff to attention seek, or does she actually genuinely think that women in senior political roles are just there to be exploited by men. She’s grim.”
The Conservative leader also used her speech to compare energy secretary Ed Miliband, the soft-left MP who could be appointed as Burnham’s chancellor, to “Nigerian military dictators”.
She said: “Yes, Ed Miliband is acting like the Nigerian military dictators who ruined a lot of that country’s economic potential and made it so much poorer and in some cases bankrupted the country.”
Badenoch claimed that the UK would be heading for a “summer of chaos” if Burnham became prime minister, too.
“Difficult problems need solving, and difficult decisions must be taken,” she said.
“But the man who will be prime minister in a couple of weeks wants a three-month summer holiday, because he needs some time to work out what he thinks.
“He will spend the next three months with unions and left-wing think tanks demanding policy changes which no one voted for.
“Andy Burnham is already the prime minister in everything but name. He must put an end to speculation, walk into No 10, name his cabinet, and come to Parliament to tell the country what he plans to do.
“Instead, he is allowing speculation and this chaos to run and run. He has clearly learned nothing from the disastrous speculation of Rachel Reeves’ last budget.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
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