A terrifying video has shown Six Flags patrons walking down a steep rollercoaster drop after the Texas amusement park suffered a power outage.

Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington temporarily lost power Saturday because “an external construction crew made contact with an underground power line,” a Six Flags spokesperson told The Independent.

The power outage left some riders stranded on several rides, including the Titan, prompting them to walk back down the tracks, according to videos taken at the park.

In one video, riders of the Titan, described by Six Flags as “Texas’ sky-touching coaster,” were seen climbing down steep steps to get off the attraction in a single-file line.

The wind could be seen blowing through the patrons as they gripped the railing, trying to descend the Titan.

Six Flags describes the Titan as the “biggest, baddest coaster in the park,” standing at 245 feet tall. The ride, first introduced in 2001, is supposed to last for three minutes and 20 seconds.

The Six Flags spokesperson said all parkgoers were “safely escorted off rides and attractions and were provided a complimentary ticket for a return visit.”

It took about two hours to fully resume operations, the spokesperson said, adding that many rides reopened later Saturday.

“On Sunday, the park resumed normal operations and opened as scheduled,” the spokesperson said. “The park looks forward to commencing daily operations this Thursday, May 21 and continuing its 65th anniversary celebrations.”

The Arlington amusement park is the original Six Flags location. It’s celebrating 65 years of operations this year with a new ride.

The Tormenta Rampaging Run will debut later this year and is promised by Six Flags to be the “tallest, fastest and longest giga dive coaster in the world.”

The coaster is more than 300 feet high and has a “record-breaking” 95-degree drop, according to the park.

In the latest round of local area committees Livingston councillors heard of two youths arrested with weapons as joint initiatives to control bad behaviour carry on.

Teenagers are continuing to cause problems with anti-social behaviour in and around Livingston shopping centre.

In the latest round of local area committees Livingston councillors heard of two youths arrested with weapons as joint initiatives to control bad behaviour carry on.

Two years after the Local Democracy Reporting Service first highlighted ASB issues in Livingston’s shopping centre it continues to be a magnet for youths from across the county.

“It continues to be a challenge,” a sergeant told councillors.

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In his report to both Livingston South and Livingston North Local Area Committees community officer Sgt Lee Brodie said that in the first three months of this year: “Despite regular patrols by police and Youth Action Project in relation to ASB issues around Livingston Shopping Centres, ASB continues to be an issue with youths from all areas of West Lothian being involved.

“Community Officers actually arrested two youths carrying weapons in the Livingston centre, leading to both being given bail conditions not to attend at the centre, and the officers concerned have continued to engage with youth justice and other partnership organisations regarding the management of the youths concerned.”

Police continue to work in tandem with youth workers and security staff at the shopping centre. In addition officers’ work in local high schools

“During Q4, Community Officers delivered inputs to all secondary school pupils in relation to the community impact of ASB, negative behaviours and how to be a good citizen.”

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PC Gareth Oliver, a community officer who has successfully run Friday night football has now taken on a post as Positive Behaviour and Community Learning Officer.

In a report to councillors Sgt Brodie added: “His role profile consists of the promotion of positive pupil behaviour and community learning both within our schools and in the community by providing support for pupils, teachers and parents/carers. This also includes contribution from both internal and external specialists to improve school attendance, reduce exclusions and ultimately increase positive destinations.

“During the reporting period, the officer delivered 1-1 sessions with allocated children, covering the ‘Happiness Hero’s’ topic online which looks at awareness of hate crime topics along with positive masculinity and conversations around ASB in both school settings and the community.

The report added: “Further to this, through ‘Inspire Academy’ he delivered the Pitchin’ In program which focuses on a range of topics including Anti-Social Behaviour, Hate Crime Awareness, Internet Safety.”

The LDRS first revealed in 2024 that Livingston centre had become a “Go To” destination for teens from around the region- taking advantage of free bus travel to come from as far as Fife to cause issues for traders and security staff.

READ MORE: West Lothian councillors to get twice yearly updates on pothole and road repairs

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The Cannes Film Festival can function like a global water cooler for movies, with prevailing issues and anxieties tending to come to the surface at the event. This year, the topic du jour is artificial intelligence.

The 79th Cannes may go down as the time the world’s grandest film festival for the first time wrestled with the onset of AI — its arrival has been felt like a tsunami on the French Riviera. Its potential to remake the movie industry, for good or bad, has been an ongoing debate since the festival opened.

And in many quarters, the tone is softening.

“The buzz in Cannes and the buzz in the industry, it does feel like it’s definitely a turning point,” said Scott Mann, co-chief executive of Flawless, a company that specializes in assistive AI programs for post-production.

On screen and off, AI is much more present.

For the first time, Cannes has partnered with Meta in a new multiyear deal. The company has set up camp at the Majestic Hotel. And its AI tools were used to help produce a festival entry: Steven Soderbergh‘s “John Lennon: The Last Interview.”

The documentary is about a lengthy and insightful interview Lennon and Yoko Ono gave on the day Lennon was shot and killed in 1980. To add imagery to match Lennon’s conversation, Soderbergh used Meta’s AI programs to create surreal graphics.

The choice brought scorn from most critics in Cannes, but Soderbergh, a highly skilled innovator who has shot movies on iPhones, believes its time for such experimentation.

“We haven’t seen yet someone with a certain amount of creative credibility go full-metal AI on something, and see how people react. I think it’s necessary,” Soderbergh said in an interview. “How do you know where the line is until somebody crosses it? I don’t think what I’m doing crosses it. Some people may disagree. I don’t know where my line is yet. I’m waiting to see.”

Everyone weighs in, for or against AI

Filmmakers, actors and others at Cannes have been drawing their own lines, or at least making pronouncements about AI.

On opening day, Demi Moore, a juror, said fighting AI “is a battle we will lose.” The next day, honorary Palme d’Or recipient Peter Jackson, said: “I don’t dislike it at all. To me, it’s just a special effect. It’s no different from other special effects.”

Filmmaker James Gray, whose starry family drama “Paper Tiger” was one of the standouts over the weekend, said he’s not worried.

“In some cases, it can be a very helpful tool,” said Gray in an interview. “I don’t think in our lifetime, or even our children’s lifetimes, it will come close to mirroring the only true infinite we know, which is the soul.”

“The answer I think is that most young people should be studying the humanities,” added Gray. “People should be reading Tolstoy in their spare time to understand the human soul.”

From Oscars to Cannes, it’s a changing landscape

Cannes is unfolding in the wake of some significant new developments for AI in Hollywood.

Earlier this month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science announced new guidelines, ruling that only performances “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be considered for acting nominations.

At the same time, the Oscar group also said AI tools “neither help nor harm the chance of a nomination.”

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists recently reached a tentative agreement with studios detailing and clarifying AI guardrails for things like the use of digital replicas and synthetic performers.

Some advancements have sent shudders through Hollywood. The unveiling of Tilly Norwood, an entirely AI-created so-called “actress,” sparked outrage through the industry. Earlier this year, the first look at a posthumous AI resurrection of Val Kilmer, for a film made with his family’s consent, spawned another round of debate.

But while more extreme uses of generative AI continue to prompt worry, other iterations continue to make inroads.

“It is going to be a part of our business,” Kent Sanderson, Bleecker Street chief executive, said in a panel discussion. “It is going to lower production costs, and yes, you probably will be able to make something that looks like a Marvel movie in your basement in a couple of years.”

While Cannes has stringent rules for what can and can’t be worn on its red carpet, it’s issuing no decrees banning AI from film selections — for now.

The day before the festival began, Cannes’ artistic director Thierry Frémaux wryly responded to a question about AI, noting that he had also heard James Cameron had used special effects for “Avatar.”

“What I can say with certainty in relation to artificial intelligence is that we are on the side of the artists, the screenwriters, actors and voice actors,” said Frémaux. “We stand with everyone whose job could be negatively impacted by artificial intelligence. It requires legislation. We need to control this.”

Mann, the Flawless executive, was sitting on the Cannes beach outside a party his company was throwing in one of the seaside clubs that regularly host movie after-parties. Since 2019, Flawless has set out to demonstrate that AI can be used thoughtfully.

Unlicensed generative AI is bad, he states unequivocally.

“But what we’ve found is that the way people don’t understand is part of the problem. AI as a term is seen as a catchall, but it’s not that simple,” says Scott. “The truth is, our industry needs saving. It needs a technological evolution, and this is offering it.”

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Supporters of Bolivia’s influential ex-President Evo Morales clashed with police on Monday in the capital city as they called on the president to resign, joining a nationwide protest movement fueled by the worst economic crisis in a generation.

Thousands of Morales’ followers converged on the plaza outside the government headquarters as Bolivia remains paralyzed by road blockades that have strangled cities and triggered food and fuel shortages in the last two weeks.

The unrest presents the biggest challenge yet for President Rodrigo Paz, a business friendly centrist who came to power six months ago as a wave of conservative electoral wins swept the region.

Security forces pushed back protesters who tried to break police ranks with canisters of tear gas before they could reach Congress or the presidential palace. Dynamite blasts rumbled, forcing staffers and lawmakers to evacuate. “Homeland or death, we will win!” demonstrators chanted, ripping shop doors off their hinges and setting fire to looted sofas used as barricades.

The public prosecutor announced 90 arrests.

“They can march if it’s peaceful, but we will take action if they commit crimes,” said Deputy Interior Minister Hernán Paredes.

A new president’s balancing act

Paz’s shock victory last year highlighted Bolivians’ disillusionment with two decades of political domination by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, as the country reeled from its worst economic crisis in 40 years. But his victory over more right-wing candidates also revealed the nation’s unwillingness to support drastic austerity measures.

As Bolivia’s first elected conservative leader since 2006, Paz has sought to balance belt-tightening with the need to placate Morales’ powerful allies who could disrupt his presidency.

To rein in a massive budget deficit, he eliminated fuel subsidies that represented a pillar of the MAS economic model. But he maintained social welfare programs and offered new benefits to informal workers to blunt the blow of inflation.

That wasn’t enough for many Bolivians. The protest movement began with the national labor union demanding wage hikes. Then farmers furious about poor quality fuel joined. Then miners strapped for dynamite piled on pressure. Now loyalists of Morales want Paz gone.

“Small things have been accumulating — the wage issue, the economic crisis, dirty gasoline that people say is ruining their cars, diesel shortages,” said Veronica Rocha, a Bolivia political analyst. “There’s a huge portion of the population that feels orphaned politically. They don’t trust anyone anymore, and because of that, anything can happen.”

Challenges mount with road blocks

Paz accuses Morales of orchestrating the unrest to undermine his administration. Road blockades have long been a main weapon of social movements tied to Morales that claim to represent Bolivia’s rural Indigenous majority.

Over the past 16 days, the protest tactic has stranded around 5,000 trucks on highways, leaving supermarket shelves empty and hospitals without some medical supplies. Critics say it’s a perverse way to protest economic pain — business chambers report the blockades cause over $50 million in losses a day.

Paz has negotiated with some protest groups, reaching deals in recent days with striking miners and teachers who agreed to end their demonstrations. He deployed thousands of police and military officers across La Paz to try to break the blockades over the weekend.

But the crisis continues, worrying the wider region. Eight allied Latin American governments, from Chile to Costa Rica, released a joint statement rejecting “any action aimed at destabilizing the democratic order.” Neighboring Argentina said it would start a weeklong humanitarian airlift to alleviate shortages in the country.

The United States, now rebuilding relations with Bolivia after years in which Morales defined the country in opposition to Washington, said it supported Paz’s efforts “to restore order for the peace, security and stability of the Bolivian people.” The State Department issued an alert this week urging U.S. citizens traveling to Bolivia to be vigilant.

Morales marshaled the latest march from his hideout in Bolivia’s remote tropics. He has been holed up in the highlands for the past year and a half, evading an arrest warrant on charges relating to his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. He says the allegations are politically motivated.

Right-wing politicians have seized on the protests to demand authorities arrest Morales, who was held in contempt of court last week after he failed to appear for a trial.

But Morales’ enduring influence “is only one piece of the puzzle,” Rocha said. “If the government wants to survive politically, it will have to make drastic changes.”

___

DeBre reported from Ushuaia, Argentina.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Local police and federal agents are investigating a shooting that took place Monday at an Islamic center in San Diego that left three victims and two suspects dead.

Police were called to the Islamic Center of San Diego, which includes a mosque and K-3 school, just before noon on Monday.

Police said they found three adults dead, including a security guard. No children at the center were harmed in the shooting.

Officers were almost simultaneously called to a scene a few blocks away on reports of gunfire, according to police.

There, they found the two teen suspects, both dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Here’s what we know about the suspects so far:

A pair of teen gunmen

Police described the two suspects as males age 17 and 18.

Officials have not named the suspects and it was not immediately clear if they were local residents or had any personal ties to the San Diego mosque police believe they attempted to attack.

Police have not described what types of weapons were used in the shooting.

The mother of one of the suspects warned police Monday morning that her son had run away, might be suicidal and had taken several of her weapons and her vehicle, according to officials.

She told police her son left with a companion, and that both were dressed in camouflage.

Police were sent to San Diego’s Fashion Valley Mall after license plate readers suggested the individuals were there. Officers also believe one of the two suspects had some kind of tie to San Diego’s Madison High School.

Officers were speaking with the mother when the shooting outside the mosque was reported.

After the attack, investigators were seen outside a home in San Diego thought to belong to a relative of at least one of the individuals, NBC San Diego reports.

Multiple crime scenes

Local police and federal agents from the FBI and ATF are investigating the case, which has a crime scene spread across multiple locations.

The three victims of the shooting were discovered outside the Islamic Center, while the two suspects were found a few blocks away.

By the time police arrived at the Islamic Center, the gunmen had allegedly left. Officers got another call about shots fired at a landscaper nearby and headed to that location.

On the 3800 block of Hatton Street, police said they found the two suspects dead in their vehicle in the middle of the street.

Searching for a motive

Investigators are treating the shooting at the mosque, the largest in San Diego County, as a hate crime.

“Because of the Islamic Center location, we are considering this a hate crime until it’s not,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters on Monday. “And at this point we’re going to work closely with the FBI to make sure that we are matching all the resources that we need for this investigation.”

Investigators found anti-Islamic writing in the vehicle with the suspects, and the words ‘hate speech’ were written on a weapon used in the attack, law enforcement sources told The New York Times. One of the suspects reportedly left a suicide note that discussed “racial pride,” CNN reports, citing law enforcement sources.

The FBI said it is surging resources to the area and federal officials including FBI Director Kash Patel and President Donald Trump have been briefed.

Police plan to review security video from the scene of the shooting.

“The FBI is meticulously assessing the situation and is prepared to employ every resource we have to uncover the facts of this incident,” San Diego-based FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily told reporters on Monday. “No community should have to go through such a tragic incident, but we will work tirelessly until we learn the truth.”

Agents are also interviewing family members and friends, Remily said.

The FBI has called on community members to submit any pertinent photo or video evidence to the bureau.

A slain security guard who stopped a tragedy

Police have said little so far about the victims of Monday’s shooting, beside the fact that they were all adults.

Officials credited one of the victims, a security guard, with stopping more deaths from taking place inside the center.

“One of the deceased is a security guard that works there and I think played a pivotal role in assisting from this being much worse,” Chief Wahl said.

If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org

A person was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries after a horror collision involving a lorry and multiple cars on the M56 on Monday (May 18). Police, fire crews and paramedics, as well as an air ambulance, raced to the scene near Warrington at around 5pm.

The eastbound carriageway was completely closed off and all traffic held in the closure while emergency services responded. Cheshire Police said a HGV and two cars were involved in the crash between junction 10 for Stretton, and junction 9, for the M6 Interchange.

Police said the closure would remain in place for ‘several hours’ into the evening for investigation works to take place. Five causalities in total were treated at the scene by paramedics. One person was cut free from a car involved which had its roof removed.

READ HERE.

A 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck south China’s Guangxi region early Monday, killing two people, toppling buildings and triggering the evacuations of thousands, state media reported.

Four others were injured, while more than 7,000 residents were evacuated from Liuzhou city.

The search for several missing residents wrapped up around midday Monday, after the last trapped person, a 91-year-old man, was found alive in good condition, authorities said.

Images aired by state broadcaster CCTV showed excavators clearing debris. At least 13 buildings collapsed, while landslides triggered by the quake blocked roads to the area, according to CCTV.

Train services around Liuzhou were canceled or delayed.

Earthquakes occasionally strike south China, with more intense ones usually occurring toward the mountainous west or the east, toward Taiwan. The most devastating recent earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 occurred in the southwestern Sichuan province in 2008, leaving more than 87,000 dead or missing.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — After the two Navy jets collided in midair, the planes sandwiched together, all four crew members were able to eject and deploy their parachutes, floating down to safety as the aircraft careened into a field, exploding into a fireball.

The collision happened Sunday during the “Gunfighter Skies” air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base some 57 miles (92 kilometers) southwest of Boise.

Here are some things to know about the crash.

Just one crew member was injured

Only one of the four crew members on the two planes was injured and was being treated at a hospital, Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Monday. The injury was not life-threatening.

The fact that all four were able to safely eject and make it down without landing in the wreckage is “truly remarkable,” said Billie Flynn, a former F-35 senior test pilot and demonstration expert.

“It is astonishing considering the way the airplanes impacted each other — incomprehensible even,” Flynn said.

The two U.S. Navy EA18-G Growlers were from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington. Each held two crew members.

The EA-18G Growler, measuring just over 60 feet (18.5 meters) long, made its first flight in August 2006 and was the first newly designed electronic warfare aircraft produced in more than 35 years, according to the Navy.

The planes appeared sandwiched together before falling

Videos taken by spectators show one of the jets was slightly behind the other before impact, and the two aircraft then appeared to become sandwiched together, with the belly of one jet just behind and to the side of the top of the other jet.

The jets then twisted and rocked together, pointing straight up for a moment before turning downward and diving to the ground. The impact resulted in a fireball and sent black smoke skyward.

The crew members ejected quickly, their parachutes opening just as the jets were pivoting toward the ground.

The cause of the crash is not yet known

Videos of the collision suggest human error is to blame, Flynn said. Before colliding, Flynn said the video shows they were trying to line up closely — wing tip to wing tip — but failed to safely rejoin in formation, a routine maneuver.

Officials have not yet released any information about what may have contributed to the crash. Umayam said the investigation is ongoing amid efforts to recover the damaged aircraft.

“Our priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of our personnel, as well as security of the aircraft during the recovery,” Umayam told The Associated Press in an email.

The skills used in air show performances are different from those used in day-to-day routine flying or flying in combat, Flynn said. He calls it “the difference between showmanship and airmanship.”

That’s why most military air show crews are assigned to just do display flights during the show season, he said.

The Growler display flight crews are all flight instructors from Whidbey Island. Their core duties generally include training pilots and electronic warfare officers from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Ejecting is a complicated process

Ejection seats use a complex system of motors and parachutes to propel crew members away from a plane in an emergency. First the canopy is pushed away from the aircraft with a blast so it poses no danger to the crew. Then the seat is launched upward and out of the plane, using solid rocket motors, before the parachute deploys and the seat drops away as the crew member descends to the ground.

“You’ve got to have enough altitude, you’ve got to be clear of any obstacles and then even after all that’s successful, you can injure your back,” said aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti. “Just the massive, propulsive force of the ejection seat can compress the spine, or your limbs may flail.”

Guzzetti said ejections are sometimes not possible during midair collisions because the damage to aircraft can be too extensive. But the way the two Navy planes came together may have allowed the opportunity to eject, he said.

“If they had hit each other at a faster speed, they would have done structural damage and the airplane would have come apart,” he said.

The two Growlers were using a seat manufactured by the U.K-based company Martin-Baker, the company said. Martin-Baker described itself as the leading manufacturer of ejection seats, including seats used by the Navy since 1958. The company says its seats have saved the lives of more than 2,000 Navy crew members since then.

The explosiveness of an ejection puts tremendous force on the crew member — as much as 20 times the force of gravity, said Michael O’Donnell, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who also worked on ejection seats in the Air Force. That’s enough force to temporarily make a person up to an inch shorter after ejection, he said

“A really, really bad roller coaster ride is not even close to that,” O’Donnell said.

The Growlers are irreplaceable

The plane remains the Navy’s most advanced airborne electronic attack tool, according to the Electronic Attack Squadron (VAZ) 129’s website. The squadron is stationed at the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where it maintains 55 of the specialized planes.

But Boeing stopped building new Growlers several years ago.

“These are invaluable national assets,” Flynn said. “There is no newer version of these — they are a very special, very powerful electronic warfare platform, and there’s never enough of them. And now we’ve lost two.”

Air shows are inherently dangerous

Pilots who perform at air shows are among the best, but there is little room for error, said aviation safety expert John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

“Air show flying is demanding. It has very little tolerance,” Cox said. “The people who do it are very good and it’s a small margin for error. I’m glad everybody was able to get out.”

The air show industry has been working to improve safety for years at the roughly 200 events held annually in the U.S. The last fatal crashes at an air show came in 2024 when two people were killed in separate accidents at different events.

“And that means he can get the best of both worlds of the surgical treatment of his aneurysm – the best possible, durable cure for his aneurysm while cutting down on the drawbacks of having surgery including big cuts and scars, big incisions on the head and also the morbidity of going through the brain and retracting the brain – all that is completely taken away by this minimal access surgery.”

Beyond the high drama surrounding the Makerfield by-election and the contest to be the UK prime minister lies a more fundamental battle. It is the struggle between the incremental pragmatism of mainstream politics and the magical thinking of populism.

The great catchword of recent UK politics has been “change”. Brexit, it was said, would change the country’s declining position in the world. Boris Johnson said after his landslide electoral victory in 2019 that he was going to take on “the problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before”.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, entitled “Change”, declared that a Starmer-led government would “stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country”.

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English local elections 2026: a story of a new kind of politics

But people have different ideas of what change means and how fast it can happen.
In a world full of entrenched, unequal social structures and complex, intractable
global problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to be in the business of long-term evaluation.

Similarly, they are not impressed by graphs showing that the UK economy is currently the fastest-growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment in England are at their lowest level in more than three years.

There are undoubtedly better ways of communicating long-term change and
identifying quick wins than the current government has adopted. However, the real battle is not between rival tellers of the mainstream narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. Remembering this will be crucial for Andy Burnham when he takes on Reform UK in the Makerfield by-election in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party and his job as prime minister.

Feelings over facts

Populist leaders are successful not because they have more convincing policies for house-building, ending child poverty or realising energy security. The change they offer appeals to visceral feelings rather than material needs. “Imagine how you will feel on the day that we come to power,” they say. “Think of how shattered all of those people who have ignored you, talked down to you, taken your jobs and pushed ahead of you in the queue for services will feel.”

Populists such as Reform UK (according to current polls the most likely party to win the next UK general election) are less interested in setting out a policy programme than in connecting with voters’ raw nerves.

That is why the most crucial lesson for Labour from the 2026 local elections
was not their devastating defeat, but the unstoppable surge of Reform’s appeal to
voters that threatened to leave them in the margins in the next general election.
Labour’s reflex response was to look at deposing its leader. And possibly at least one of Starmer’s rivals for the job would be more effective at taking on this new form of political opposition.

More important, however, is to be clear what is involved in taking on
populism. A new prime minister will be faced with exactly the same challenges as
the current one and will not be able to deliver transformative change simply by force of an appealing personality.

Europe will still be involved in its longest war since 1945. The US will continue to be an unreliable partner. The climate emergency will go on wreaking havoc. Social care for an ageing population will remain a massive challenge. National debt will still limit the capacity for public investment. Regional disparities and indefensible social inequalities will still exist.

All of these challenges and more will result in sections of the electorate feeling alienated and disappointed – the very sentiments upon which populism depends.

The big question for whoever is going to be prime minister in the next three years is not just about policy and delivery (although it is also very much about that), but about offering an alternative to the psychic appeal of populism. That will entail adopting a three-point strategy.

First, politicians need to acknowledge the depth of disappointment felt by people whose parents and grandparents had once believed that the government was there to look after them in times of need. The prime minister should declare an urgent mission to build an infrastructure of cradle-to-grave care, which exists not to tell people how they should be feeling, but to be democratically accountable to their needs and priorities as individuals and communities.

Second, there is a need for a complete overhaul of political language, led by the prime minister’s example, eschewing the lexicon of technocratic cliche and adopting the conversational tone of speaking with rather than speaking at people.

Third, there is a need for boldness in calling out the ugly sentiments of populism and appealing explicitly to the more generous, positive feelings and beliefs of the majority that are too often excluded from the domain of hardheaded politics.

A new prime minister will need to be imaginative in demonstrating that populists are not the only ones who can appeal to people’s deepest apprehensions and desires. And they will have to show that politics can be more like an inclusive conversation than a PowerPoint presentation. In that case, then perhaps the recent soap opera will not be as inconsequential as many people perceive it to be.