Ministers are considering an "HS2-light" railway line between Birmingham and Manchester as a new chapter opens in the long-running saga. In a "rethink" of Rishi Sunak's decision to "entirely scrap" the high-speed line beyond Birmingham, the government is examining a plan which it hopes can be "delivered much more cheaply than the original scheme", said The Times.

What went wrong?
A government-commissioned study in 2006 concluded Britain needed greater rail capacity, but the delivery of the project was fraught with "incompetence and financial mismanagement" from the start, said Madeline Grant in The Telegraph. In the original plan, trains were "going to be hurtling between 18 cities at speeds of more than 200mph", said ITV News, bringing two thirds of everyone living in northern England within two hours of central London.

But this time last year, Sunak scrapped everything apart from the line between London and Birmingham, which was already under construction – meaning "billions of pounds" of taxpayers' money was "blown" on the project, said the BBC's "Panorama".

What is the new plan?
The new scheme would see an additional section between Birmingham and Crewe in Cheshire. Although it would be slower than HS2, it would still allow trains to travel faster than the present West Coast mainline. It would be a money-saving "HS2 light", said Business Matters.

In a related development, the government has "dropped its biggest hint yet" that it will also fund the HS2 line to Euston as originally planned, abandoning the previous government's budget-saving plan that would see the line stop at Old Oak Common in west London, said Construction Enquirer.

What's the reaction?
The "conundrum" over HS2 "may have been solved", wrote Ben Clatworthy, transport correspondent for The Times. The government is "embracing the true reason a new line needed to be built between London and the north", which was not "speed" but "capacity".

The new plans could also help current disruption and overcrowding problems at Euston station, said Simon Calder, travel correspondent for The Independent. The "elephantine project intruding on the room" is the stalled HS2 on the western flank of the station. It's time to "awaken" that "zombie building site", and "get on with it".

Some 40 years after it was shown for the first time, a BBC pseudo-documentary exploring the possibility of an apocalyptic nuclear attack on Sheffield, and its devastating aftermath, will be screened tonight.

Since the film aired in 1984, many have been unable to "scrub their minds clean of scenes and images" from this war drama, said The Times, yet it has rarely been shown since.

The showing, on BBC Four at 10.20pm, is only the fourth time the film has been broadcast, providing new generations with the "chance to be horrified by the effects of nuclear weapons" and an imploding society.

'Everyone was talking about it' 
"Threads" was first shown on BBC Two during the "height of the Cold War", and with "fears of nuclear Armageddon gripping the world" the film quickly "scarred the collective consciousness", said Sheffield's The Star. 

Forty years on, "I'm still traumatised", wrote Nick Duerden for the i news site, who watched the "part TV drama, part public information film" as a teenager. The day after it aired "everyone was talking about it", and the film essentially "went, yes, viral", even before the advent of the internet.

The terror extended beyond the wider viewing population. Some "600 people" from the area decided to volunteer as film extras and were later invited back to watch a private screening, said the BBC. Many thought their appearance "might be a bit of fun", but it was safe to say "no one was expecting anything quite like this". 

A host of television programmes later discussed the film at length, including "Newsnight", which was "given over to a special debate" featuring UK politicians and nuclear war experts.

'Modern parallels' 
The film has developed a cult following of so-called "Thread-heads", people from across the world who return to watching the classic, in some cases finding it "weirdly comforting", said Jude Rodgers on The Quietus. 

Despite its absence from our television screens, it remains "the most terrifying film ever made", said The Spectator's Ian O'Doherty, but also a "work of uniquely stoic British brilliance".

As war continues to escalate around the world, returning to this "40-year-old masterpiece" will undoubtedly feel "uncomfortably laden with modern parallels" for all.

Sophie Willan's "sharp, silly" sitcom, "Alma's Not Normal", has returned to BBC Two for a second season and it's "just as delightful and off-the-wall as ever", said Emily Baker on the i news site.

The first instalment of the hit comedy saw the hugely likeable Alma Nuttall (loosely based on Willan and played by the comedian) on the verge of swapping her "frequently grim job as an escort" for a tour with a local theatre group, said Rachel Aroesti in The Guardian.

But "sadly for our hero", Alma ends up being "lumped with the role of a tree" and, this season, returns to her home town of Bolton, where her mother's boyfriend is being held "semi-captive" by her "imperious" grandmother, Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne). "Blacklisted" from the sex industry, she gets a job with her best friend Leanne (Jayde Adams) who has opened a bar in the back of a lorry.

The show is an excellent example of a small British comedy that's been able to "flourish" among the "global juggernauts", said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph. Despite a 36-month gap between the seasons ("an ice age in TV time"), we should be glad that the "home-spun, northern-and-proud-of-it" show has made it to our screens at all. Willan has "both an ear for dialogue and an eye for a zinger", and the show is "first and foremost a triumph of writing and performance".

While the second season "radiates rage and devastation", it also manages to capture the first instalment's "life-affirming vibe", added Aroesti in The Guardian. As a "furiously real yet incorrigibly hilarious sitcom, it's pretty much perfect".

Two deaths shaped my belief in the right to die. This bill could change everything
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
Bravo to Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who can "expect a rough ride" for her assisted dying bill and "will come under ferocious cannonades from those vehemently opposed". The final stages of my own "mother's liver and bowel cancer were dreadful" and then a friend, "stricken with motor neurone disease" died "alone, unable to say goodbye". Assisted dying "will not just rescue a few from shocking deaths", but "all of us from fear it might happen to us".

Streeting must act to give ME patients the care they need
Sean O’Neill in The Times
The inquest into the death of my eldest daughter, Maeve, "finally ended this week" with the coroner "highlighting the woeful lack of research into the causes of, and potential treatments for, ME". The illness had blighted Maeve's life since her early teens and she succumbed to it at the age of 27. Health Secretary Wes Streeting and NHS leaders must now heed the coroner's recommendations and "take the necessary action".

Everyone needs to stop getting so angry about dryrobes
Helen Coffey for The Independent
"What is it about dryrobes that makes people so very angry?" writes Helen Coffey. They don't seem "like something to get particularly exercised or incensed about" yet they've "become synonymous with a certain strain of middle-class smugness". But since when was it a "crime to get multiple uses out of a practical item of clothing"? Just know that, "snug, cosy and unbeatably dry, I'm even smugger than you could possibly imagine".