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Oli Dugmore says shunning paedophiles is “fringe” at top of Labour

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Oli Dugmore says shunning paedophiles is "fringe" at top of Labour

Soft left New Statesman digital editor Oli Dugmore was a guest on BBC Question Time on 5 February 2026. And he had a scathing verdict on the normalisation of paedophilia at the top of the Labour Party.

Oli Dugmore on BBCQT

Oli Dugmore said that he generally doesn’t like to dismiss people according to the worst thing they’ve ever done – but wouldn’t want to be friends with, let alone work with, someone who rapes children. But he said that view is “fringe” among senior Labour figures. Instead, they look at Epstein fanboy Peter Mandelson and think “that’s our man in Washington”:

He was also clear that Starmer knew all along about Mandelson’s closeness to serial child-rapist and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer didn’t need the security services to tell him, because a quick Google search revealed plenty.

Of course he knew.

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Featured image via the Canary

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Is AI Making Us Want Impossibly Perfect Teeth?

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“Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers, but to filtered images and AI-generated faces,” says dentist Pia Lieb.

Posting our every move on social media has its joys and consequences — one of which is the incessant opportunity for self-criticism. Our smiles, oddly enough, are often the target of our scrutiny. There we are, mid-scroll on TikTok, wondering if we should have worn our retainers a little more stringently in sixth grade.

But how many of us are actually taking action?

As it turns out, a growing number of young women are actively seeking out veneer consults, even when their teeth are healthy, straight and functional. Veneers — essentially a thin, custom-made porcelain shell for teeth once reserved for the Hollywood elite or midlife reinventions — have quietly become part of the modern beauty conversation, discussed in the same breath as Botox, filler and laser treatments.

What feels new isn’t the desire for nice teeth, but how commonplace the idea of altering them (often in a very costly and somewhat dramatic way) has become. In many cases, there’s nothing clinically wrong with our teeth at all — a smile may be slightly warmer in tone, a tooth a fraction shorter than its neighbour.

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However, details that once would have gone unnoticed now seem glaring. These small variations are part of what gives faces character and humanity, but because they don’t resemble the uniform, hyper-polished smiles saturating social media, young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.

Spend time on TikTok or Instagram, and you’ll see it everywhere: “smile transformations,” “seat day” reveals, influencers documenting their temporary teeth and final results in real time. The language is casual, almost breezy, as if cosmetic dentistry is simply another stop on the self-care circuit (scheduled right after a facial or waxing appointment).

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than 260,000 minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed on patients 19 and under in 2023. And while veneers aren’t tracked the same way as injectables, young adults without medical issues are increasingly seeking consults with dentists for an aesthetic upgrade.

Young girls have always been coerced into obsessing about their image — having the perfect body shape, silky hair, impossibly smooth skin — but today, it’s getting even more granular.

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“Now more than ever, we are staring at our own faces,” says Andi-Jean Miro, a New York City-based cosmetic dentist with several celebrity patients. “Between Zoom, FaceTime, TikTok and dating apps, it can feel like living with a camera on you all the time.” In that setting, small details become magnified, and perfection begins to feel attainable and therefore expected.

“Young women are increasingly growing up believing that cosmetic alteration isn’t an exception, but an expectation.”

Social media has also changed how cosmetic work is discussed. Procedures that were once private are now documented publicly, often framed as transparency. Veneer “journeys” unfold in real time — even though some of the details are omitted in favour of a pithy, watchable video. Temporary teeth are shown, final results are revealed. The repetition has a normalising effect.

“When you see it enough,” Miro says, “veneers start to feel routine, even if your natural teeth are already beautiful.” Celebrities and influencers have played a role in this shift, offering highly visible smile transformations that circulate widely online.

But the images themselves can be misleading. Many of the smiles labeled as “veneers” are actually crowns — a far more invasive procedure that requires the significant removal of the natural tooth structure.

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Even moments that serve as cautionary tales don’t depict the true story. Internet personality Tana Mongeau famously posted a TikTok showing her “veneers” falling out, a clip that quickly went viral. What many viewers didn’t realise — and what dentists are quick to point out — is that what fell out was likely a crown, not a veneer, a distinction that underscores how poorly understood these procedures have become online.

But that difference is critical in a clinical setting. And once you shave down those pearly whites? Well, that’s that.

“A veneer is an enhancement. A crown is reconstruction,” Miro explains. Veneers cover only the front surface of a tooth and can often be done conservatively. Crowns encase the entire tooth, requiring aggressive drilling. “For younger patients with healthy enamel, crowns are usually unnecessary. And once that enamel is gone, you can’t get it back.”

“Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers, but to filtered images and AI-generated faces,” says dentist Pia Lieb.

Jan Nevidal via Getty Images

“Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers, but to filtered images and AI-generated faces,” says dentist Pia Lieb.

Pia Lieb, a dentist, founder of Cosmetic Dentistry Center NYC and a former clinical assistant professor at New York University, sees the effects of this confusion regularly. She describes a generation that examines their smiles with an intensity that was previously impossible. “Patients come in with concerns about a single tooth being slightly longer or less symmetrical,” she says. “They are zooming in on their own faces in ways that weren’t available even a decade ago.”

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Filters and editing tools further distort expectations. Teeth appear whiter, straighter and more uniform than biology actually allows. “Young women are comparing themselves not just to influencers,” Lieb says, “but to filtered images and AI-generated faces.” The result is a narrowing definition of what a “good” smile looks like, one that often excludes natural variation. And that’s dangerous.

While veneers can be appropriate in certain cases — such as physical trauma, intrinsic discolouration or developmental issues — both Lieb and Miro caution against treating them as a cosmetic shortcut. Veneers require long-term maintenance and eventual replacement. Plus, they can take a good chunk out of your wallet, running from $500 to $2,500 per tooth.

Over-preparation can lead to sensitivity, nerve damage and restorative work later in life. “This part is rarely shown online,” Miro says. “Cosmetic dentistry is a commitment, not a trend.”

What stands out most about the surge in cosmetic consults isn’t vanity so much as vulnerability. It’s the moment when a young woman pauses a video of herself and wonders why her smile doesn’t look like the ones she sees everywhere else. It’s the slow accumulation of images, comparisons and “before-and-afters” that make perfectly healthy teeth start to feel insufficient.

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And recent, poignant findings have shown that teen girls process social media content involving body image differently than their male counterparts. Research from 2022 suggests that teen girls reported using TikTok and Instagram (where there’s an abundance of content with strong suggestions about body image and aesthetics) more often, while teenage boys use Twitch, YouTube and Reddit.

One problem with this, says Amanda Raffoul, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is “a societal acceptance of body dissatisfaction in teen girls as a normal.” In a story by The 19th, she explained that this assumption “can create a dangerous environment for teens to engage in social media.”

Since young women and girls are exposed to more body criticism online, it’s worth having real conversations, offline, about what certain dental procedures entail and whether having one is truly necessary — rather than a byproduct of something we see on an AI-doctored image or in a post from an influencer.

In a culture that rewards polish and uniformity, the pressure rarely announces itself outright — it builds gradually, until opting out feels harder than opting in.

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A smile, after all, is not just another aesthetic choice. It is functional, biological and deeply personal, shaped by genetics, age and real life experience. As cosmetic dentistry becomes increasingly normalised for younger patients, the question shifts from whether veneers are beautiful to whether young women are being given enough space — and enough honest information — to decide what they actually want.

Sometimes, enhancement is the right choice. But sometimes, the best option is realising that the smile you already have doesn’t need fixing at all.

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I Slowly And Quietly Destroyed My Marriage. Don’t Make The Same Mistake

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I Slowly And Quietly Destroyed My Marriage. Don't Make The Same Mistake

I could tell you my marriage ended. But that wouldn’t be the whole story. The truth is I slowly and quietly destroyed my marriage while convincing myself everything was fine.

I’m an average guy. I had a good job, and I showed up physically. I paid the bills. I provided. I thought that was enough. I thought love was something you earned once and then just… had.

I grew up in a small town in rural western Kentucky, raised in church by a devoted mother. Faith was familiar. Scripture was familiar. People watched me grow up and assumed I’d be fine. I assumed it, too.

My parents divorced when I was five. After that, I saw my father three times before he died. No birthdays. No calls. No effort. For years, he lived a mile from me, and I never knocked on his door. I didn’t have the courage. We joked about it when we drove by his house, but jokes are sometimes just a mask for pain.

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I didn’t realise then how much that absence shaped me. I learned how to be likeable. How to avoid confrontation. How to be “fine” instead of honest.

When she walked into church one Sunday in a red dress back in the summer of 2014, the world stopped. I still see it clearly. Third row from the back, sliding past her family to the middle of the pew. She didn’t know what she did to me just by walking in. I remember thinking, Don’t screw this up.

She had a way of making rooms feel warmer without trying. A confidence that wasn’t loud. A softness that wasn’t weak. She laughed easily, but she also carried depth. She noticed people. She listened. She remembered things I forgot.

When I told her I loved her and she said it back, something settled deep in me. Well, after my heart exploded in my chest. It felt safe. Certain. Like I had finally landed somewhere.

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I loved her in ways that were quiet and ordinary. I loved how she moved through the world. She loved the beach, and I loved watching her stand at the edge of the water, red swimsuit with white trim, dipping her toes in and hesitating. She was terrified of sharks and whatever else she thought might await her out there. She would cling to me as I pulled her farther out, trusting me even when she was afraid.

I loved the way she looked at night when everything was quiet. Wearing one of my T-shirts, ratty pyjama shorts, hair a mess, no makeup. No one has ever looked better with no makeup. Standing at the end of the bed rubbing lotion on her arms, talking about something small that felt important just because she was saying it. I would watch her and think, This is it.

And still, I didn’t protect it.

I loved her voice. I loved the way she sang karaoke without fear. I loved how she laughed at herself. I loved how hard she tried. How much she gave.

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And then, years later, when she said yes to my proposal, something in me relaxed. I thought the work was done.

I didn’t stop loving her. I stopped being careful with her heart. I stopped listening the way I used to. I stopped noticing when she was tired. I stopped hearing what she was really saying. I defended myself, instead of protecting us. I crossed lines I knew better than to cross. I hid things because honesty felt inconvenient.

I didn’t lose my wife all at once. I lost her in pieces.

For 10 years, I quietly gave her hell. Through defensiveness. Through distraction. Through choosing comfort over connection. Through the nights I chose screens, hobbies or “me time” over sitting next to her. Through moments where she needed my presence.

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She warned me. She told me she was tired. She told me she felt alone. She told me she was losing feelings. She said it more than once. More than twice. I treated those words like background noise. Something to address later. Something that could wait.

I thought love would wait.

On Christmas morning in 2025, everything looked normal. The kids were laughing. Wrapping paper everywhere. A life built together doing what it had always done. But when I looked at her, her eyes were empty. Not angry. Not sad. Just done.

When she asked me to leave, I told myself it was temporary. I said what I needed to say to get back to feeling comfortable. A week later, it wasn’t temporary anymore.

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I moved into an apartment. Friends told me I’d be home soon. I wanted to believe them. But something inside me knew I wouldn’t be.

There is a special kind of loneliness that comes from grieving someone who is still alive. Your brain lies to you and tells you there’s hope because she’s breathing, because you can still see her. But your heart knows when something sacred has already left the room.

Finally, the lights came on.

Years ago, my mum bought me glasses to help improve my colour-blindness. When I put them on, I cried. Colours I had never seen before exploded into view. That’s what this was like – except it wasn’t colours. It was her.

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I saw everything clearly. The love she gave. Her patience. Her effort. All the times she stayed when she shouldn’t have. And then I saw myself, from her side, without excuses. I realised that I didn’t lose her suddenly – I lost her slowly, choice by choice.

I let the pain hurt. Sleepless nights. Knots in my stomach. A heaviness that didn’t lift when the sun came up. Somewhere in that pain, I began to change.

Not to win her back. I changed because I couldn’t live as that man anymore.

I am learning not to waste time on things that just fill gaps in the day, but to focus on the things that truly make an impact in my life. I have learned to lean on God in a way that I never have in my life. I’ve learned “I’m sorry” has to be more than just words. I am learning to be a man.

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Every day, I ask myself one question: How can I love her today – even if she never comes back? Sometimes that means prayer. Sometimes silence. Sometimes restraint. Sometimes doing the right thing knowing she’ll never see it and never know.

Our old home feels different now. I see unfinished projects. Cracks I never fixed. The effort I postponed because I thought there would always be time.

I wish I had been more present. I wish I had soaked in the moments instead of multitasking my way through them. I wish I had taken more pictures. More videos.

I still love her deeply. I probably always will. I don’t know what tomorrow will look like. I don’t know when this pain will ease or when I will no longer feel the urge to crawl back into her presence.

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The world doesn’t stop turning, so we move forward. But we don’t have to move forward blind. I pray there will be another chance for me to find this kind of love again in the future. If I do, I will walk into it as a man with a scar – one that will instruct me on how to love for the rest of my life.

If my story keeps one man from assuming love will wait, from believing tomorrow is guaranteed, then something good came from the wreckage.

Don’t wait until it’s too late.

Logan Durall is a pseudonym for a writer who hopes other men might learn from his example before it’s too late.

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The insanity of vape bans

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The insanity of vape bans

The post The insanity of vape bans appeared first on spiked.

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The Green surge is coming for Keir Starmer

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The Gorton and Denton by-election is historic by any measure.

The result marks the first time that the Green Party of England and Wales, which has existed in one form or another since 1973, has won a parliamentary by-election.

In fact, the Green vote share (40.7%) was four times larger than their previous best by-election performance (Somerton and Frome in 2023). Less than one year ago in Runcorn and Helsby, the first by-election this parliament (and pre-Polanski), the party polled at 7.0%, placing fourth. 

Historically, parties returned with landslide majorities have proved resilient in the initial by-elections of a new parliament. Not so this government. And the nature of Labour’s recent routings has been remarkable. The result in Gorton and Denton means that the first two by-elections of the parliament have been won by Reform UK and the Greens – parties beyond the established mould of the British party system. There is no obvious precedent for such a pronounced anti-incumbent and anti-establishment turn in the electorate. The mould is breaking. 

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In Gorton and Denton, the Greens (40.7%) and Reform candidate Matt Goodwin (28.7%) placed first and second – together accounting for 69.4% of the vote. The last time Labour finished third in a by-election it was defending was in Mitcham and Morden in 1982. 

It also should be noted that the Conservative candidate in Gorton and Denton won just 706 votes (1.9%); this, the party’s worst-ever performance at a parliamentary by-election, has cost Kemi Badenoch’s party its £500 deposit.  

The deeper one delves, the more history appears to have been made.

The contest represents the first by-election in Great Britain since the 1945 Combined Scottish Universities election in which neither of the two best-performing candidates came from the Conservative Party, Labour, or Liberal Democrats (excluding the Rochdale by-election in 2024, which was fought under highly unusual circumstances).

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Hannah Spencer, new Green MP for Gorton and Denton, is the first of her party to win a seat in the North of England. Spencer’s election means that, after nearly 100 years of continuous representation, the Gorton area of Manchester will not have a Labour MP. The old constituency of Manchester Gorton was previously one of Labour’s safest seats in the country. 

Gorton and Denton, the Green Party’s fifth-ever parliamentary seat, was one of only 70 seats nationwide where Labour won more than 50% of the vote share in 2024. Its 13,413-vote majority made it Labour’s 38th safest seat. The turnout on Thursday stood at 47.5% – just 0.3% below the 47.8% recorded at the general election.

Spencer overturned the sixth-largest Labour majority to fall at a by-election since the Second World War.

The Gorton and Denton result is the first time since Rochester and Strood in 2014 (when Ukip and Mark Reckless displaced the Conservatives) that an ideological rival has taken a seat from the governing party in a by-election. That contest followed the more symbolic Clacton by-election in which Douglas Carswell triumphed at his former party’s expense. 

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Ukip’s de facto successors, Reform UK and the Brexit Party, posed a considerable if uneven threat to the Conservatives from 2019 to 2024. But it failed to steal any seats from the Tory government during its tenure. After coming close as the Brexit Party in the 2019 Peterborough by-election, Reform did not secure over 10% of the vote again until February 2024 (Wellingborough). 

***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.***

Hopefully that is suitable historical context to establish the significance of the Green victory in Gorton and Denton.

The result underlines that the Green threat to Labour and Keir Starmer, the subject of some speculation in recent months, has materialised. The Green Party has announced itself as a clear, present and probably existential threat to its rival on the left.

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Sometimes by-elections really matter. Orpington. Hamilton. Eastbourne. Glasgow East. Clacton. North Shropshire. Add Gorton and Denton to that list.

For Labour, the contest is unquestionably a calamity – the worst by-election result in the party’s recent history. Labour finished third with a quarter of the vote in what it had insisted was a two-horse race between itself and Reform. The party demonstrated that it was not best positioned to defeat Reform UK in a seat it has held for decades with overwhelming majorities. On current trends, the 57% of current Green supporters who say they would hold their nose and vote tactically for Keir Starmer’s party in a fight between Labour and Reform UK will be staying put. 

There is a clear echo of the Caerphilly contest, a Senedd Cymru by-election, which took place in October 2025. In both cases, Labour landed in third place behind Reform and an ascendant progressive party. 

The signal these elections send is that Labour is a poor option for progressives concerned about the forward march of Faragism. This psychological watershed, of course, has similarly significant implications for idealistic progressives who have hitherto feared “wasting” their vote with the Greens. 

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The simplest summary of the by-election from Starmer’s perspective is that things are bad and getting worse. The result will compound the turmoil that follows May’s elections, surely shortening the prime minister’s stay of execution. 

It is pertinent that Starmer placed himself at the centre of the by-election campaign with his decision to block Andy Burnham, Labour’s best bet, from standing. The prime minister’s blocking manoeuvre reflected a lack of guile and foresight – a level of political myopia that only the narrowest evaluation of one’s self-interest can produce. Even Spencer, the Green candidate, conceded that Burnham is “very popular here” and that “people really respect him”.

Starmer is discovering, as Rishi Sunak once did, that the arrival of rock bottom merely masks further plumbable depths. Labour’s decline, like the Green Party’s rise, is unreasonably well-advanced.

As such, if the Gorton and Denton by-election reflects the state of Labour under Starmer, it is equally a testament to the transformation of the Green Party under Zack Polanski’s leadership. 

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I recognised that the 2025 Green leadership election was a “turning point” for the party. The Greens appeared on the cusp of unlocking their potential as a populist insurgent on Labour’s left flank. That potential is now being fully explored. 

Polanski has learnt from the Faragist right about how to cut through, organise a political narrative and tell stories to a disillusioned public. “Eco-populism”, simply put, has brought a strategy certainty and self-confidence to the Greens. It has also expanded the party’s appeal beyond a handful of target seats.

Gorton and Denton is, in many respects, a different kind of seat from the Green Party’s current collection. 

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Adam Ramsay (Waveney Valley) and Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire), who stood against Polanski in 2025 on a minimalist ticket, routed longstanding Conservative strongholds at the 2024 general election. Ramsay and Chowns owe their place in parliament to the party’s inroads in rural, Tory-facing seats. Meanwhile, Brighton Pavilion, a historic Green stronghold now held by Siân Berry, and Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) are younger, generally irreligious urban seats – natural hotbeds for progressive politics. In these constituencies, over 80% of voters supported remaining in the European Union (EU) at the 2016 Brexit referendum. 

The Green Party’s electoral strategy pre-2024 also spanned years of grassroots activism and progression at the local government level. Before Ramsay prevailed in Waveney Valley, the Greens secured the Mid Suffolk council at the 2023 local elections. The party narrowly missed out on an overall majority on Bristol City Council in the 2024 local elections. The Ramsay-Denyer strategy bore fruit, to the surprise of some commentators, at the 2024 general election. For the Green Party, winning four seats under first past the post represented a serious breakthrough and the possibility of sustained political relevance. 

But this victory in Gorton and Denton would have been unthinkable under the Denyer-Ramsay co-leadership or a hypothetical Ramsay-Chowns ticket.

Gorton and Denton is a mostly urban, ethnically diverse constituency with high levels of economic deprivation. An estimated 50% of voters in Gorton Denton supported leaving the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Greens and Spencer surged from third to first place over a relatively short campaign. In particular, the success of the Green Party in mobilising the constituency’s Muslim population should alarm Labour MPs.

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The Greens have broken new ground with the scale, nature and symbolic meaning of their victory in Gorton and Denton. 

Polanski has succeeded, in part, by responding to his party’s obvious political incentives. The GPEW and its sister parties finished second place in 40 constituencies at the 2024 general election; in all but one of these 40 seats, the Greens finished second to Labour. The party effectively exhausted the electoral potential of its “Countryfile conservative” strategy after securing breakthroughs in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.

Spencer, a former plumber who joined the Greens in 2022 because she was “so angry at the gap between the super-rich and all the rest of us getting bigger”, could prove a real asset to the party and Polanski in parliament. In her victory speech, she celebrated the defeat of “the parties of billionaire donors”. This allusion to the “pure people”-“corrupt elite” binary suggests Polanski has secured a parliamentary bridgehead for his eco-populism. 

Green surges have been snuffed out before, of course: following the 1989 European Parliament elections (when the party won 14% of the vote) and ahead of the 2015 general election. But Polanski’s success in carving out a foothold for the Greens in an increasingly crowded political landscape suggests the party is not going anywhere anytime soon. Polanski will weaponise the Green victory in Gorton and Denton as proof that his party is the progressive force best equipped to thwart Farage.

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The Green leader’s strategy has attracted sizeable media interest because it aligns with the moment: he has cast himself as an insurgent challenging establishment arguments. But social media clicks can only get a party leader so far. For insurgent parties, electoral success is the currency of credibility.

Gorton and Denton proves that the Green Party’s recent success is no mere mirage – the surge is real, and it is coming for Keir Starmer.  

Josh Self is editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here and X here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.

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The Healthiest Breads, Ranked By A Dietitian

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The Healthiest Breads, Ranked By A Dietitian

Dietary advice provided by registered dietitian Jo Travers, also known as The London Nutritionist.

Though a dietitian previously told us that wholegrain pasta is a little healthier than the “plain” kind, she doesn’t think it’s an all-or-nothing issue. “The best choice depends on individual preferences, digestive tolerance and the overall balance of the diet,” the expert said.

Sourdough may be best, but there are caveats

Speaking to HuffPost UK, registered dietitian Jo Travers said: “There are definitely healthier (and unhealthier) types of bread.

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“The healthiest ones are high fibre sourdough breads, made with a sourdough starter and slowly fermented. This gives the microbes time to alter the flour to make it healthier.”

Fibre has been linked to decreased heart disease, cancer, and even dementia risk, though 90% of us aren’t getting the required 30g a day.

And true sourdough has a lower glycemic index than those made with commercial yeast, which may be a better choice for those with diabetes.

But, Travers said, there’s a caveat: “Beware supermarket and non-artisan sourdoughs as these aren’t usually made [the traditional] way.

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“They may have a small amount of starter, but they generally have yeast added to speed the process up, which means you don’t get the benefits.”

Some doctors have expressed concern about “sourfauxs,” or bread which is labelled sourdough in supermarkets but which does not rely on a traditional starter to rise. Look for terms like “added yeast” on the packet to spot them.

Is wholegrain bread always better than white?

To complicate this, though, sourdough is often made with white flour. Travers said, “Fibre is really important, but wholegrain is best because the grain is left fairly intact, which isn’t the case with the 50/50 type breads or brown breads.

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“So yes, I would say that wholegrain is probably always healthier than white (except if you are anaemic and trying to increase iron. In this case, you would want white rather than brown or wholegrain).”

But, she added, the case is “quite nuanced” as, “It’s a difficult toss-up between white sourdough and wholemeal seeded because the latter is higher in fibre, but the former might have less of an effect on blood sugar and may be beneficial to gut health, so [seeded wholemeal bread, wholemeal bread, and white sourdough] are potentially equal.”

The healthiest breads, ranked by a dietitian

Tavers ranked the healthiest breads in this order, from most to least healthy:

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  1. Wholemeal seeded sourdough with different types of grains like spelt and rye (“lots of different fibres”),
  2. Wholemeal sourdough,
  3. Seeded wholemeal bread, wholemeal bread, and white sourdough,
  4. Supermarket seeded multigrain (“actually not usually wholegrain despite having different types [of grain]”),
  5. Brown, non-sourdough bread,
  6. 50/50 bread,
  7. White, non-sourdough bread.

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Morgan Freeman Rips Trump And His Immigration Policies

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Morgan Freeman Rips Trump And His Immigration Policies

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman on Thursday unleashed on President Donald Trump during a no-holds-barred appearance on MS NOW, but only after graciously asking “Last Word” host Lawrence O’Donnell if he could “use profanity” to do so.

Freeman last appeared on the programme in 2020 following the death of civil rights activist John Lewis and read his final essay on the show. O’Donnell on Thursday noted just how different the world is now and asked Freeman if he had any thoughts on the matter.

“Can I use any profanity?” Freeman asked.

He continued, “Well, we have somebody sitting in the White House who’s leading us down a shithole. I can’t personally understand how a convicted felon, convicted, [with] 34 felon — felonious, is that the word? — counts of wrongdoing gets to be president.”

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Freeman was referring to the 2024 hush money trial in New York that saw Trump found guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business documents to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with porn actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

“How do you do that?” Freeman asked. “When say, ‘Well, he was…,’ I don’t care. That ruling went down before he stepped into the Oval Office. So it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Trump has denied wrongdoing, dismissing his conviction as a “rigged decision.”

Freeman was promoting “The Gray House,” a Prime Video series he helped produce that dramatises the true story of a woman-led network of Union Army spies during the Civil War. But he argued that the US s current problems reflect an even bleaker historical period.

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“I’m constantly reminded of Germany in 1935,” he told O’Donnell. “What was happening there? The brownshirts, those people that are marching through, particularly Berlin, and rounding up people, putting them in boxcars and sending them off.”

Freeman continued: “Now this administration wants to build large detention centres.”

Trump has rapidly expanded the number of immigration detention centres over the course of his current administration. The number of detainees has increased by 50% over the past year, with innumerable reports describing inhumane conditions inside the facilities.

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O’Donnell noted that “the condition this country’s now in” has demoralised large swathes of young people who can’t help but feel that the political landscape is “the worst” it’s ever been, asking Freeman what he would tell those youths.

The actor replied: “I don’t know what I would say to young people, other than if you are at all aware of where we’re headed, where we are right now and where we’re headed — and if you don’t agree with it — there is one sure way to change the direction of our country: Vote.”

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Gavin Newsom Predicts Trump Era Will ‘De Facto End’

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Donald Trump.

California Governor Gavin Newsom made a stark prediction about what he thinks the fate of Donald Trump’s presidency will be after the 2026 midterms.

Speaking with MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki,” Newsom laid into the president after Psaki mentioned there has recently been “a lot of outrage” among Trump’s MAGA base over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files as well as Trump “doubling down on tariffs.”

Asking Newsom if he thinks anything has “shifted” since Trump has faced criticism from his own supporters, the governor responded by declaring that Trump’s presidency will “de facto end” when the Democratic Party wins elections in November.

“Even if [Trump and his supporters] fell out, he’s the president of the United States for the next three years. Good news, he’s temporary. That’s just three years. And the presidency as we know it will de facto end this November when we get the gavel back and Speaker [Hakeem] Jeffries becomes the next speaker, as long as we remain vigilant,” the Democratic governor told Psaki.

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Newsom went on to accuse Trump of using “suppression tactics” to try and position the midterms in his favour by “nationals[ing] federal elections,” “vandalis[ing] free and fair elections,” “going after [the] vote by mail [process],” and “sending out those masked [federal agents] all across this country.”

The governor added: “He’s a reality, and we can’t turn our back to that reality.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Donald Trump.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Donald Trump.

Pivoting to discuss NPR’s Tuesday report that alleged that the Justice Department withheld and removed more than 50 Epstein files related to Trump, Newsom argued, “There’s a reason he’s single-handedly worked so hard to make sure they were never released … Period.”

After Psaki questioned what the reason was, Newsom replied that it’s “to be determined.”

Calling the NPR story “pretty damn alarming,” he continued, “Here’s what’s more alarming and this is my biggest concern — is that there’s a chance that we may not [ever] know for one reason.”

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Telling Psaki that he can envision Trump “pardoning half the damn administration” and “things disappearing” on “[his] way out,” he stressed, “we need to be mindful of that. We need to be vigilant of that. This is the rule of Don. It’s the rule of the jungle. There’s no rule of law.”

Newsom added: “The courts are speed bumps [to Trump], they’re not stop signs. He tries to work around them. He doesn’t believe in coequal branches of government.”

Earlier in the interview, Newsom referred to Trump as a “broken man,” adding, “that’s why I think he tried to break our country.”

Watch Newsom’s interview below. Skip to the 19:15 mark to hear his comments.

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Brit Awards 2026: When And Where Is It, And Who Are The Performers And Nominees?

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Manchester's Co-Op Live arena is the new home of the Brit Awards

The biggest night in British music is almost upon us – and judging from this year’s guestlist, we reckon it’s going to be a pretty jam-packed one.

Between A-list nominees, incredible guest performers and the winners who’ve already been announced, it’s a fair bet that the always-chaotic Brits ceremony could deliver on one or two moments guaranteed to have us all talking the next day.

And so, with just hours to go until the fun begins, here’s your quick guide to the 2026 Brit Awards…

When and where are the 2026 Brit Awards?

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Since 2011, London’s O2 Arena has been the home of the Brit Awards, but this time around, organisers are doing things a little differently.

For the first time in Brits history, the ceremony is moving out of the capital to Manchester, where the newly-opened Co-Op Live arena will be the home of this year’s Brits action, as part of a new two-year deal.

The ceremony is due to take place on Saturday 28 February from around 8.15pm.

Manchester's Co-Op Live arena is the new home of the Brit Awards
Manchester’s Co-Op Live arena is the new home of the Brit Awards

How can I watch the 2026 Brit Awards?

As always, the Brits will be shown on ITV1 – and the ceremony will be airing live on Saturday night, so fans can tune in to watch all the action as it happens.

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Why are the Brit Awards in Manchester this year?

The CEO of the BPI, the organisation behind the Brit Awards, announced last year: “The Brit Awards have helped to tell the story of British music in all its brilliant diversity, capturing some of its most memorable moments, and this groundbreaking move to Manchester will only add to its rich legacy.

“This exciting new chapter celebrates not only the city’s exceptional musical heritage and its status as a powerhouse of British creativity, but the great depth of artistic energy and potential that exists all across the UK.

“I feel sure it will fire the imagination of fans, artists and the wider music community alike, and we look forward to sharing the experience with them.”

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Who is hosting the 2026 Brit Awards?

Jack Whitehall is back on presenting duties once again.

Jack Whitehall presenting at the Brit Awards in 2019
Jack Whitehall presenting at the Brit Awards in 2019

This year’s Brits will mark Jack’s third consecutive year hosting, and sixth time overall.

During his tenure fronting the Brit Awards, the comic has become known for his irreverent style, although this hasn’t always sat well with the celebrities in attendance – or, for that matter, viewers watching from home.

While Jack will be hosting the main ceremony, Charley Marlowe and Tyler West will be presenting live red carpet coverage across the Brits’ social media channels before the event gets underway.

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Who are the performers at the 2026 Brit Awards?

Album Of The Year nominees Olivia Dean and Wolf Alice will be performing during the ceremony, with Harry Styles and Raye also set to give fans a taste of their upcoming new albums.

Harry Styles on stage at the 2023 Brit Awards
Harry Styles on stage at the 2023 Brit Awards

Dave J Hogan via Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images

As for international performers, Rosalía, Alex Warren and Sombr will all be taking to the stage, with a special pre-recorded number from KPop Demon Hunters singers Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami also forming part of the broadcast.

Meanwhile, Mark Ronson is expected to close the show after being honoured with the prestigious Outstanding Contribution To Music title.

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According to The Sun, his performance is expected to feature guest appearances from artists he’s worked with over the years, including Lily Allen and Dua Lipa, though this remains unconfirmed for now.

Mark Ronson performing in New York last year
Mark Ronson performing in New York last year

Who are the artists, singers and bands nominated at the 2026 Brit Awards?

Interestingly, they’re also both fresh from wins at the Grammy, where Olivia picked up Best New Artist and Lola beat some huge names to pick up the Best Pop Solo Performance prize.

Lola Young on stage at last year's VMAs
Lola Young on stage at last year’s VMAs

Besides those two, Sam Fender has four nominations to his name this year, following his victory at last year’s Mercury Prize, while Dave, Fred Again.., Lily Allen, Jim Legacy and Wolf Alice are all on three.

The top award of the night, Album Of The Year, is a five-way race between Dave, Lily Allen, Olivia Dean, Sam Fender and Wolf Alice, and this is one we could imagine going any number of ways.

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Who are the winners at the 2026 Brit Awards?

This might seem like a strange question to be answering ahead of the ceremony, but actually, a number of winners have already been confirmed.

As well as Mark’s Outstanding Contribution title, Jacob Alon is the recipient of the Critics’ Choice Award, which recognises emerging talent, while PinkPantheress has become the first woman – and youngest person ever – to be named Producer Of The Year.

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8 Baby Tees Perfect For Layering This Spring

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8 Baby Tees Perfect For Layering This Spring

We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Spring is agonisingly close to, erm, springing, which means it’s soon time for us to shed a couple of layers and maybe, just maybe, see the sun more than once or twice a month.

However, with the changing seasons comes that pesky transitional weather.

It can be so hard to dress for the UK weather appropriately, especially when we’re liable to shiver in Baltic temperatures when the sun goes down, sweat when it’s out, and cower under umbrellas during random showers in between.

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But baby tees can be especially handy for transitional dressing, thanks to how easy they are to layer under jumpers, cardigans, and chic jackets.

They’re also pretty hard to style badly, having been in vogue pretty much non-stop since the 90s.

If you’re looking to expand your baby tee repertoire, look no further – here’s a selection of great high street options to shop now.

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Wuthering Heights: 11 Biggest Differences Between The Film And Book

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Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington as young Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights

Emerald Fennell’s film version of Wuthering Heights is, to say the very least, not your grandma’s version of Emily Brontë’s gothic masterpiece.

Although many Brontë purists have been less than pleased with the way the movie has chopped and changed the iconic source novel, Emerald has spoken in defence of her adaptation on several occasions, insisting she was trying to make “something that was my response and interpretation to that book and to the feeling of it”.

In fact, that’s why she made the decision to show the film’s title in quotation marks and other promotional materials, including its title card.

But just how much of the original novel is left in the recent big-screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights?

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Here are 11 major differences between the two…

Emerald Fennell’s decision to depict Heathcliff as white faced backlash before filming had even begun

The topic that generated the most discussion long before Wuthering Heights hit cinemas was around Heathcliff’s ethnicity and background.

As soon as Jacob Elordi was cast in the role, people criticised Emerald for “whitewashing” the character, who is described in the novel as a “dark-skinned gypsy” and a “little Lascar”, a term used to refer to sailors from India, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

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Mr Earnshaw says he found Heathcliff at Liverpool docks, a location historically associated with the Transatlantic slave trade. Some scholars even believe that the author was using Heathcliff to comment on the Liverpool slave trade.

Academics have long felt that the ambiguity of Heathcliff’s ethnicity and mysterious family background adds to the story, particularly with regard to how he is treated by Cathy’s family.

Elsie Michie, a professor of English at Louisiana State University, told The New York Times that “the dynamics of this novel are about otherness in various ways, and that otherness is in Heathcliff”. By making Healthcliff and Cathy the same ethnicity, Emerald’s film relies on class differences to create a rift between the lovers.

Asked about removing the character’s ethnic background and casting a white actor to play him,

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Emerald previously claimed: “Everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so you can only kind of ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it.”

She also explained that, when casting Jacob, she was less concerned with the text and more with her own memories of reading the book.

″[He] looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read,” she added during an earlier interview.

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights film only covers the first half of the novel, and misses out on the second generation of the Earnshaws and Lintons

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Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights very specifically focuses on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, but fans of the Gothic novel will know this is only one part of a bigger story.

Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is less a romance and more a supernatural warning about intergenerational trauma. Emerald has chosen not to include these elements, instead turning Cathy and Heathcliff into tragic lovers frolicking on the moors.

This latest adaptation covers only the first half of the book, ending the story just after Cathy’s death. In the latter half of the novel, a bereft Heathcliff dedicates his life to torturing those around him, including Cathy’s daughter, and the son he and Isabella later have.

“The thing for me is that you can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book,” Emerald told Fandango in January regarding the charges.

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Emerald’s film is far from the first adaptation of Wuthering Heights to omit the second part of the novel, which scholars believe completely reframes the story’s message.

“You lose that sense of a cycle of violence,” said the curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Murray Tremellen, to Time when explaining why failing to adapt the second part of the book waters down the story.

Eliminating the second generation of Lintons and Earnshaws and Heathcliff’s treatment of them from the story “allows you to ignore that who he is persecuting are the innocent,” lecturer Sam Hirst told Time.

“You can’t think of it as a love story if you actually honestly portray that part of the story,” because “what his love actually looks like is this horrifying toxic nightmare of a thing,” Hirst added.

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Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights gets rid of the narrator, completing erasing the Lockwood character

Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of Wuthering Heights fundamentally alters the novel’s structure, shifting the point of view from Lockwood and Nelly to a more linear narrative.

The book is told through second-hand accounts, after Mr Lockwood moves into Thrushcross Grange and wants to learn more about the mysterious Heathcliff who lives nearby. He speaks to Nelly, who recounts the story of Heathcliff’s romance with Cathy and the impact it has had on the two households.

Mr Lockwood does not appear in the recent film at all, removing the outsider’s perspective that the book gives readers.

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Emerald even joked to BuzzFeed: “Let’s be honest, no one misses him.”

Cathy’s ghost haunts the moors in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

Because Emerald ends her film just after Cathy’s death, the book’s supernatural elements are also removed from the newest spin on Wuthering Heights.

In the novel’s opening chapters, before Nelly starts telling the story, a ghostly apparition of Cathy appears to Lockwood, demanding to be let in through the window.

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Heathcliff claims to be haunted throughout Brontë’s novel, with villagers claiming at the end that they see him and Cathy’s ghost on the moor together.

Cathy and Heathcliff are much younger in the book than they are in the Wuthering Heights film

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s casting as Cathy and Heathcliff initially raised eyebrows because both are almost double the age of their characters in the book.

In the novel, Cathy is six when she meets Heathcliff, while in the film, the younger versions of the characters are played by teenagers Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper.

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As the characters grow, 34-year-old Margot takes over as Cathy, with 27-year-old Jacob portraying the adult Heathcliff.

In the book, meanwhile, Cathy is 12 when she meets Edgar, 17 when she weds him and 18 when she dies.

The book suggests that he leaves Cathy and Wuthering Heights aged 16 and returns three years later, rather than the five described in the film.

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It’s worth pointing out that the film does address the aging up of the characters, with Nelly referring to Cathy as a “spinster” in one scene.

Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington as young Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights
Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington as young Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights

The character of Hindley Earnshaw has also been completely erased from Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights film

In the Emerald Fennell film, it’s established early on that Cathy’s brother (also called Heathcliff) is dead, and that she has no other siblings. By contrast, in the book, Cathy has a malicious and violent older brother, Hindley Earnshaw.

Hindley is one of the main antagonists of the novel, abusing Heathcliff and exploiting him after their father’s death. It’s often considered that this abuse is what turns Heathcliff into a toxic, manipulative adult.

When Mr Earnshaw dies, Hindley becomes the master of the household, forcing Heathcliff into servitude. In the latter half of the book, Heathcliff gets revenge by abusing Hindley’s son and forcing him to become his servant.

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Emerald told BuzzFeed that she saw Hindley as little more than a “narrative tool” that Brontë “doesn’t really extend any grace to”, which she found difficult to incorporate into her script.

“You can have an outright villain in a novel. You can have somebody who,

like, tries to throw a baby off a banister,” she said. “But for me, I’m always looking for the kind of tension in characters where you do have sympathy, always, no matter how reprehensible they are.”

In Hindley’s absence, Mr Earnshaw becomes the villain in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights

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Martin Clunes plays a reimagined version of Mr Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights
Martin Clunes plays a reimagined version of Mr Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights

Martin Clunes plays Cathy’s father, Mr Earnshaw, as an alcoholic brute, though his character is much kinder in Brontë’s source material.

In the novel, he has goodwill for Heathcliff, arguably favouring him above his own children. Some fans of the book have gone as far as speculating that this close bond is intended to suggest that Heathcliff is his illegitimate son.

In Emerald Fennell’s film, Mr Earnshaw and Hindley have been merged together, the result being “a sort of father character who was at once loving, charismatic, generous, and on the other side, cruel, malevolent, capricious”.

The director told BuzzFeed: “It was about kind of looking at where Cathy and Heathcliff have kind of what they’ve learned, what behaviour they’ve learned, how they’ve learned to manage things, how they’ve survived up to a point.”

Nelly’s supposed villainous traits are enhanced in the new Wuthering Heights film – although Emerald Fennell doesn’t want you to call her that

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Compared to the original novel, Emerald’s take on the story depicts Hong Chau’s Nelly as less of a nurse or housekeeper, and more of a companion figure for Cathy.

As one of the narrators in the book, she clearly has disdain for Heathcliff, but in the film, her role is much more opportunistic. In the absence of Hindley, Nelly becomes something of a villain in Cathy’s life – although some Brontë fans would suggest Nelly has always been a low-key “bad guy”.

In the big-screen adaptation, Nelly encourages Cathy to accept Edgar’s marriage proposal, burns Heathcliff’s letters to her (in the book, she burns the correspondence between Heathcliff’s son and Cathy’s daughter instead) and ignores Cathy’s health complications, dismissing them as a childish tantrum.

When Cathy takes to her bed in grief over Heathcliff’s wedding to Isabella, Nelly also ignores the state of her health, which ultimately leads to the sepsis that causes Cathy’s death.

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During her BuzzFeed interview, Emerald explained that she was inspired to change Nelly’s character by scholars who believed Nelly was the true villain of Wuthering Heights.

“I think we all can relate to that person,” she claimed. “When you’re the sensible one and you’re the one who can see that something is a terrible idea, and you’re the one, perhaps in Nelly’s case, who doesn’t have as much power to affect the things around her.”

She added: “I get why she does the things she does. Because looking at what’s happened, what is happening and then happens afterwards.”

Hong Chau as Nelly in Wuthering Heights
Hong Chau as Nelly in Wuthering Heights

While Nelly might be the villain of the story, it was important to the filmmaker that Hong’s character be given her “moment of grace at the end” where she realises that her dismissal of Cathy’s feelings ultimately contributed to her death.

Edgar and Isabella Linton have a totally different relationship in the film compared to the Wuthering Heights movie

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In Brontë’s work, Cathy’s husband Edgar Linton is the biological brother of Isabella (played by Alison Oliver), but in the film she is introduced as his “ward”, an orphaned minor who is placed under his guardianship.

The Linton parents are also nowhere to be seen in the new movie, despite appearing in the novel, with Edgar acting as the master of Thrushcross Grange.

Crucially, Emerald’s film also removes the romance from Edgar and Cathy’s relationship. While in both the book and movie, Cathy is motivated by class and money, the film removes any notion that she is in love with the man she married.

Isabella Linton’s marriage to Heathcliff in the new Wuthering Heights film is nothing like the book

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The version of Isabella we see in Emerald Fennell’s film is almost unrecognisable compared to her literary counterpart.

While she has always been portrayed as a delicate and immature character, Emerald brings out the more quirky aspects of Isabella in the latest adaptation.

Both the book and film iterations of Isabella are obsessed with Heathcliff, but in the book, she is less aware that she’s being manipulated by him. Film Isabella, on the other hand, is much more calculating, and appears aware that Heathcliff is using her to make Cathy jealous.

In the novel, she genuinely loves Heathcliff and regrets their union when he starts abusing her – even going as far as killing her dog – resulting in her trying to flee their home when pregnant with their son.

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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Jacob claimed that the provocative scene in the movie, in which Isabella is depicted on all fours in a dog collar taking commands from her husband was the director’s way of “taking the killing of the dog and these really dark parts of the novel and putting them into this scene”.

Alison Oliver as Isabella in Wuthering Heights
Alison Oliver as Isabella in Wuthering Heights

In the same interview, Emerald said she felt it was important to acknowledge that Isabella winked at Nelly to indicate consent.

The filmmaker pointed out that the dialogue in this sequence is almost the same as the novel.

She said: “That scene in the book, I think that’s the reason why [Wuthering Heights] was eviscerated when it came out because I think it was just so shocking to people. Because there’s so much in what happens there that is… very, very complicated. Very transgressive – even for now, it’s shocking.

“And, obviously, I visually added some things to that scene, but [the dialogue] is almost all Brontë.”

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Of course, one major difference between the novel Wuthering Heights and Emerald Fennell’s film is those sex scenes

Emerald is definitely not a director who shies away from sex or nudity. While Wuthering Heights is, in many ways, tamer than Saltburn, her adaptation was still much racier than the source material.

Brontë’s book portrays Cathy and Heathcliff as having a deeply romantic – albeit tortured – relationship, but they only kiss once in the novel, and it’s never explicitly stated that they have sex.

In the movie, though, there is a whole montage dedicated to the couple’s sex life.

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“Wuthering Heights is an extremely sexy book,” Emerald said during a recent appearance on the podcast Happy Sad Confused. “It’s so sexy. Lots of people argue about that, lots of people feel that it is not a sexy book at all. I believe it is a very sexy book, I felt it was a very sexy book.

“But, you know, nothing [sexy] happens [in the book]. So that’s the other side of things. But, you know, it’s interesting, the perception of something, and the thing itself, are so different.”

Jacob has also insisted the movie’s sex scenes were “entirely in the spirit of the novel.”

“Any image that comes from Emerald’s head is inspired by that depravity and love and obsession,” the Euphoria actor told USA Today. “They’re all in the language of what Brontë was driving at with this book, so it was never really a shock or a reach.”

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Cathy’s death is very different in the book in comparison to the film

One of the biggest artistic liberties Emerald Fennell takes with her adaptation is its ending.

In the novel, Cathy dies shortly after giving birth to her daughter (also called Cathy), Emerald’s film shows the character dying of sepsis after miscarrying.

The director told Entertainment Tonight that she made this change because she wanted to expand the circular nature of the text.

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“It begins where it ends and ends where it begins. And that’s the thing about love, and it’s the thing about the book, right?” she said. “It’s that it’s forever and it’s cyclical, and so there’s no stop – even when there’s a terrible, sad, tragic stop, it’s not really a stop – because that’s what the book feels so much about. It’s about the depths of human feeling and how it exists in a profound way, not just a physical one.”

Unlike in the book, Heathcliff does not visit Cathy before her death in the film, but in a fever-induced state, she imagines his younger self speaking to her.

Emerald added that in Bronte’s novel there are “about three different meetings and three different speeches”, so her rewritten version of events was her way of “consolidating that”.

“And so what I did was I brought a lot of the love forward, and a lot of those really important conversations forward, to give them some time so that it didn’t just happen at the end,” she offered.

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Wuthering Heights is in cinemas now.

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