Politicians might be expected to at least try to keep their personal dramas off the public stage. But the past year has brought a series of high-profile bust-ups that played out under our gaze, both at home and abroad. Here are just a few of them.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump
The Tesla and X boss was initially known as the US president’s “first buddy” for his seemingly unparalleled access to the Trump White House. But after taking a chainsaw to the federal government with his DOGE “cost-cutting” initiative, Musk left the administration. Days later, he urged Republicans to reject Trump’s tax bill, which he called a “disgusting abomination”.

After that, the “speed of the fallout was breathtaking”, said The New York Times, and “every bit as lowdown, vindictive, personal, petty, operatic, childish, consequential, messy and public as many had always expected it would be”.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana
After leaving the Labour Party in high dudgeon in July, Zarah Sultana attempted to set up a new left-wing grass-roots party with now-independent MP Jeremy Corbyn. But the duo couldn’t even decide on the name, much less anything else.

The pair had a bitter falling out that saw Sultana claiming she had consulted libel lawyers. She later rescinded the threat and told Sky News that they were like Liam and Noel Gallagher, the feuding Oasis brothers who patched things up for their reunion tour. However, she neglected to invite Corbyn to a rally due to take place on the eve of the inaugural conference of what is now officially known as Your Party. Don’t look back in anger, indeed.

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner
Angela Rayner was once seen as the future of the Labour Party – and possibly its future leader. But she became embroiled in controversy this summer after admitting that she had mistakenly underpaid stamp duty on a flat in Hove. Keir Starmer initially stood by his deputy but the noise grew louder and, after being found to have breached the ministerial code, Rayner handed in her resignation, plunging Labour into a chaotic deputy leadership race and cabinet reshuffle. 

Now, the rumour mill is once again stirring that Rayner might be gunning for his job. She declined to rule out running for the party leadership if Starmer finds himself defenestrated, telling the Daily Mirror in her first big post-resignation interview that she had “not gone away”.

“I think in many ways Chat GPT 5 is already smarter than me at least, and I think a lot of other people too,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico in September.

The AI advances made since the start of 2025 could “set the world on a path of explosive growth”, said The Economist. “The picture that is emerging is perhaps counterintuitive and certainly mind-boggling.”

‘Charismatic megatrauma’
We have reached a “pivotal moment” in our relationship with artificial intelligence, said Idan Feingold on CTech. Over the last year, the AI hot potato has “evolved from a buzzword to the epicentre of every business conversation”. There has been an unprecedented “surge” in productivity linked to AI innovation, with practical applications advancing “at a pace we have never seen before”.

“AI has begun to settle like sediment into the corners of our lives,” said David Wallace-Wells in The New York Times. Following the “prophetic phase” that came after the 2023 release of ChatGPT, we have relaxed into “something more quotidian”. Like many other “charismatic megatraumas”, such as nuclear proliferation and climate change, AI retains the power to distress and disturb, but it no longer provokes mass hysteria.

‘Genuine opportunities’ 
“The hype and the hopes around AI have been like nothing the world has seen before,” said The Economist. Audiences have “marvelled” at ChatGPT’s abilities and were “mesmerised” by Sora 2’s generative video capabilities. That fascination shows no signs of fading: some analysts are predicting that more than $7 trillion will be spent on AI by the end of the decade.

Amid this flood of funding, sceptics are speculating about when the AI bubble might burst. But that may be “asking the wrong question”, said Jurica Dujmovic in Market Watch. Don’t be misled by the 2000 dot-com crash: we are experiencing an “orderly deflation” rather than a sudden collapse. Amid the doom and gloom, the AI market still presents “genuine opportunities” for investors, operators and consumers alike.

Focus is now “shifting” to the outlook for AI in 2026, especially concerning its commercial profitability, said The Economist. Next year, expect reactions to be even more extreme, with “economic revival”, a “financial bust” and “social backlash” all possible.

A pelican flies over Panama City. A monument in the neighbouring city of Arraiján marking China’s contributions to the Panama Canal was torn down on Saturday by order of the local authorities, amid rising global tensions over control of the waterway.

Martin Bernetti / AFP / Getty Images

Winter marks the end of one video game season and the beginning of the next. Check out these recent releases to kick off your gameplay wish list for the new year. 

Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Marvel Cosmic Invasion may be the “best traditional beat ’em up of the year”, said Game Rant. Developer Tribute Games “achieved near perfection” with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge”, and the upcoming release “looks set to build beautifully on that foundation”.

She’s Leaving
In this first-person survival-horror game “with a twist”, you play “both the hunter and the hunted”, said GameSpot. As forensic analyst Charles Dolan, players explore the dimly lit halls of spooky House Haywood on a quest to solve the mystery of missing people. “She’s Leaving” is a “compact but engaging” horror game that “blends forensic investigation with tense, stalker-driven survival gameplay”, said Impulse Gamer.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
December 2025’s biggest game “by quite a margin”, “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond” faced a “long and winding road to completion” that included a change in developer and a “reinvention”, said GameSpot. But the final result  meets the high standard set by the original trilogy, which “hold up as three of the greatest first-person Metroidvanias of all time”.

Code Violet
Another interesting mash-up, “Code Violet” is a third-person shooter and horror hybrid that features dinosaurs. The game is a PS5-exclusive set in the future, where humanity has mastered time travel. Players take on the role of Violet Sinclair, a girl abducted from the past who must unravel the mysteries of the Aion Bioengineering Complex while avoiding or fighting the prehistoric creatures that are overrunning it.

Labour reverts to type, with an absence of direction and dynamism
The Times editorial board
As Keir Starmer nears his “second full year in No 10, it is clearer than ever” that he hasn’t “learnt the lessons” from the “iron rule that Labour governments revert to type, put party before country and suck the vitality from the economy”, says The Times. Amid global uncertainty, Britain “needs strong leadership and political stability to protect its interests”. But “under a divided, unchanged Labour Party, the risk is that ministers will merely seek to advance their own in 2026”.

Brigitte Bardot did not ask to be forgiven
Gerry Brakus in The New Statesman
Brigitte Bardot’s significance “was never confined to her acting”, writes Gerry Brakus following her death at the age of 91. “She mattered because she altered the image of womanhood at a moment when female beauty was expected to reassure. She unsettled instead.” Part of her “authority” stemmed from “her refusal to revise herself”. This also led to a hardening of views that made her, “by any reasonable measure, deeply unlikeable”. Yet her “unapologetic insistence on being herself continued to exert a pull”.

The hill I will die on: Pigeons are working-class heroes and deserve some respect
Toussaint Douglass in The Guardian
I really “like pigeons”, writes comedian Toussaint Douglass, because “they’re like me, working class”, and when faced with a task, “just get on with it”. Yet “no other bird faces so much hostility” from humans, even though “of all the birds, pigeons are the most tolerant” of us. They even served for this country in the Second World War, “successfully carrying out missions and saving human lives”. The least you can do in return is “spend a few minutes pigeon-watching”.