The government is under growing pressure to name an MI5 spy who operated at the heart of the IRA for decades, as a damning new report details the findings of a nine-year, £47.5 million investigation into his alleged crimes.

Despite the efforts of MI5 to protect his identity, the agent, codenamed “Stakeknife”, is widely accepted to be West Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci (pictured above), after he was unmasked by the media in 2003. But the British authorities have refused to confirm his identity, citing the “neither confirm nor deny” policy for spies.

What did it find?
The 160-page Kenova Final Report revealed evidence of Stakeknife’s involvement in “serious and unjustifiable criminality, including kidnap, interrogation and murder”. He has been implicated in 14 murders and 15 abductions while working in a notorious IRA unit known as the “nutting squad” that, ironically, was responsible for flushing out spies within its ranks.

An interim report last year found that Stakeknife’s actions probably “resulted in more lives being lost than saved”. The newly released full report says the British security services protected him after overvaluing him as an asset.

What did MI5 know?
The security service has previously said its involvement with Stakeknife was “peripheral”. But the report states that MI5 was “closely involved in his handling” and “had automatic sight of all Stakeknife intelligence and therefore was aware of his involvement in serious criminality”.

Stakeknife submitted 3,517 intelligence reports during his time under cover. He was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for his services and had a dedicated phone line to contact his handlers. Senior Army figures treated him as the “crown jewel” of British intelligence, and he had a reputation as “the goose that laid the golden eggs”, the report said.

Will he be officially identified?
Iain Livingstone, head of Operation Kenova, has backed calls for Stakeknife to be named. The government has said it is waiting on the conclusion of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court that has implications for the “neither confirm nor deny” policy. “The government’s first duty is, of course, to protect national security and identifying agents risks jeopardising this,” said Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn.

Critics are weighing in with their verdicts after one of the world’s most prestigious – and hotly debated – art prizes was awarded to a 59-year-old Glaswegian artist with autism and learning disabilities. Honoured by the 2025 Turner Prize for what the judges called her “bold and compelling” work, Nnena Kalu is the “first learning-disabled artist to be nominated” for the prize, “let alone win it”, said Mark Hudson in The Independent.

Kalu’s large, hanging, cocoon-like sculptures, made from old VHS tape, rope and fabric, and her bright, swirling “vortex” drawings” in pen and pastel, beat the work of three other shortlisted artists. Her win “breaks down walls” between “neurotypical and neurodiverse artists”, said Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, chair of this year’s jury.

‘Seismic’ victory
“Kalu’s forms come at you with their almost alien unknowable presence,” said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. You become entangled in the work’s “roaring, spilling, snaggling details” and can’t help but wonder about your “own boundaries, the body’s beginnings and its endings”. Her own verbal communication is limited, so her work “has to speak for itself” – and it has quite a bit to say.

“Much has been made, and rightly so,” of Kalu’s win, but her victory is “seismic” beyond reasons of equality and diversity, said The Independent’s Hudson. Her work places an emphasis “on the visual, tactile and experiential in art – values that have lost primacy in recent years”. 

‘Maddening’ decision
Kalu’s “triumph will be hailed as a watershed moment for Britain’s disabled community”, but the judges’ “decision is also maddening”, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. The shortlisted Mohammed Sami, who “makes vast, haunting contemporary history paintings, like half-remembered nightmares”, will “feel that he’s been cheated”.

Her “lumpy sculpture, fashioned from brightly coloured gaffer tape and discarded bubble wrap”, is “up there with the worst art” ever nominated for the Turner Prize, Waldemar Januszczak, art critic at The Sunday Times, said on his website in October.

Maybe “it wouldn’t be the Turner Prize without a soupçon – or rather a bucketful – of provocation”, said The Telegraph’s Sooke. But “did the jury really consider her the strongest artist” on the shortlist? Jury chair Farquharson said the decision “wasn’t about wanting, first and foremost, to give the prize to Nnena as a neurodiverse artist”. It was “a real belief in the quality and uniqueness of her practice, which is inseparable from who she is”.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado greets supporters in Oslo after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The democracy activist arrived in the Norwegian capital a few hours too late to accept the prize in person, after ⁠donning a disguise to defy a ⁠decade-long travel ban imposed by her home country.

Lise Åserud / NTB / Alamy

Dive into festive cheer, from now into the new year, with traditional favourites and modern twists-on-a-tale.

Mama Goose, Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
You may be familiar with the sight of “Elon Musk as a pantomime villain”, but at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, you have the pleasure of seeing a “panto villain as Elon Musk”, said The Guardian. “Mama Goose” (pictured above) takes wacky to the next level, and is chock-a-block with “afrobeat-tinged music” and “satirical sideswipes”.

Jack and the Beanstalk, Bristol Hippodrome
“Live music, vibrant costumes, stunning sets and breathtaking special effects”: that sums up this fun take on the iconic panto show, said Radio Times. Will Young makes his panto debut as the magical Spirit of the Beans in this “unforgettable adventure”. Expect a lot of farce and silliness, with plenty of audience participation.

Cinderella: A Fairytale, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Sally Cookson’s “celebrated adaptation” is guaranteed to “delight the whole family”, said Edinburgh News. Her modern take on the panto classic (still with the resplendent Queen’s Ball!) combines music and puppetry, promising a festive production that “adds a magical flutter of wings to happily ever after”.

Robin Hood, Manchester Opera House
This Northern panto is steeped in tradition, with “all the bells and whistles” of a festive performance, said The Telegraph. Local hero and stand-up star Jason Manford joins the production for the fourth year in a row, this time starring as Robin Hood. Strap in for a rollicking ride, full of laughter, slapstick and “surely the odd local Oasis gag”.

Wes Streeting’s ‘Overdiagnosis’ Crusade Isn’t Going to Help Anyone
Micha Frazer-Carroll on Novara Media
My chest tightened at news of the health secretary’s “review into supposed mental health ‘overdiagnosis’”, writes Micha Frazer-Carroll. With welfare reforms in the offing, this is “clearly intended to push sick and suffering people back into work”. A “culture war” is being waged to “distract from concrete political and economic” issues. We must change “a society that disables so many, then punishes them for their distress”. That should be the focus, so “let’s not allow Labour to misdiagnose the problem”.

Young hipsters are adopting Churchill’s favourite prop – this is why
Francesca Peacock in The Telegraph
The cigar, that “smoking accessory of gentlemen of old”, is “making an unlikely come-back”, writes Francesca Peacock. “Gen-Z nicotine addicts” are reaching “for something unexpected” now that “vapes and cigarettes have become ‘uncool’”. Old stuff coming back into fashion “is a pattern that repeats itself across history” – think of the return of vinyl following “CDs, MP3s and streaming services”. Perhaps after “AI-robots” overtake “us all in a few years”, “being merely human will become achingly cool”.

Snobbery is the best weapon against screen time
Lara Prendergast in The Spectator
I rejoiced when the Princess of Wales revealed that “she has a strict ‘no phones at the table’ rule”, writes Lara Prendergast. Then Prince William “let slip” that 12-year-old Prince George “isn’t allowed a smartphone”. Hopefully, the now royal-warranted “anti-smartphone movement” will “exert its influence”. I think “social stigma is potentially the most powerful weapon we have”: “if Prince George isn’t getting an iPhone for Christmas, plenty of other children certainly won’t be either”.