If 2024 was the year of the Labour landslide, 2025 was the year that smaller parties were on the rise – with potentially huge ramifications for the next election.

As polls continue to show voters “deserting Labour and the Tories”, the talk of election deals is “becoming more urgent”, said The i Paper. The two main parties are losing supporters to Reform UK and the Green Party, fuelling predictions that tactical voting “may decide the next general election, due in 2029”. But who would make a pact with whom?

Tory-Reform
Nigel Farage has denied claims from unnamed Reform donors in the Financial Times that he expects an electoral pact or a merger between his party and the Conservatives before the next general election. Such a move would be a historic realignment on the right of British politics, but Farage said he is in fact aiming for a “reverse takeover” of the Conservatives. “A deal with them as they are would cost us votes,” he said.

Kemi Badenoch has also ruled out the idea. But “there are posh Southern seats where Reform can’t win, and working-class seats where the Tories can’t win”, said The Telegraph. While there is unlikely to be any “formal arrangement”, each party “quietly standing aside” in certain constituencies “makes sense”.

Green-Labour
The Greens are eyeing a “pact” with Labour to “shut out Farage”, two senior Green Party officials told Politico. Zack Polanski’s party is “discussing the prospect of informal, local prioritisations of resources, so the best-placed progressive challenger can win”.

But Labour is “keen to tamp down talk of working together”. A senior government adviser said Labour is “not even thinking about” working with Polanski. There’s “scepticism” that a “non-aggression deal” would work because the Greens will be “vying for the kind of urban heartlands Labour can’t afford to back down from”.

Lib Dem-Labour
The Liberal Democrats and Labour have teamed up in the past – in 1903, 1924, 1929 and 1977. The question of them uniting again for a “common national project” has been “asked repeatedly, in various guises and circumstances, for more than 100 years”, said The Guardian.

But what about now? Would Lib Dem leader Ed Davey work with Labour? “Everyone knows he would,” said The Independent, but “everyone also knows he can’t say so”.

For many, a new year brings with it an iron determination to break old habits or start new, positive ones. And then “holiday treats” and “sales confront us at every turn”, so we waver and indulge, said psychologist Angela Duckworth in The New York Times.

The logical conclusion would be to “try harder” to say no but studies of how people achieve their goals suggest the opposite may be true. “Willpower is overrated.”

‘Cultural hangover’
Iron self-control may be lauded socially but most successful people “rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations”, said Duckworth. Instead, they exercise “situational agency”, and “minimise the need for willpower in the first place”.

If you want to keep off social media, avoid owning a smartphone, like Ed Sheeran and Zadie Smith do. If you tend to duck out of an early morning run, make sure your “shoes are warm, dry and waiting” on the doormat, like former Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee does. 

Believing in willpower alone as a means to tackle temptation head-on is a “cultural hangover”, said behavioural scientist Michael Hallsworth in The i Paper. We have been conditioned to believe that it is “more virtuous to fail” in succumbing to desires than to “succeed with help”. But “that attitude is a trap”. 

‘Commitment devices’
There is no shame in relying on tricks and tips to achieve your goals, said Hallsworth. “Commitment devices” such as public pledges – posting your intention to run a half marathon on social media, for example – hold you accountable by “weaponising social pressure against yourself”.

Incentives and rewards work well, too, psychologist Kimberley Wilson told BBC Radio 4. By telling yourself a “positive story”, you give yourself the “best chance to achieve your goal” and the “rest is likely to follow”.

Be wary of comparing yourself to others and, above all, don’t be put off by a “momentary stumble”. With “planning, self-belief and the will to change”, goals can still be achieved, even if the willpower wavers from time to time.

A man walks through the frozen streets of Huntly, near Aberdeen. Further heavy snowfalls are forecast for Scotland as Arctic air continues to sweep across the UK.

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

A “sobering shift” is taking place, with “stiff drinks” giving way to “soft power”, said Tamzin Reynolds in Tatler. As “Dry January hits its stride”, low- and non-alcoholic alternatives to booze are booming.

Whether you’re “zebra striping” (alternating between alcoholic and soft drinks), or going cold turkey (perhaps literally if you still have leftovers), “abstinence has never been more indulgent”. Here are some of our favourites to kick off 2026.

Lucky Saint unfiltered alcohol-free lager (0.5%)
One of the reasons Lucky Saint is such an “old favourite” is that the company only makes alcohol-free products, said Victoria Moore in The Telegraph. The “Pilsner style beer” is an “excellent” lager made with “citrussy, floral Hallertau hops”. Its popularity means it is widely available in major supermarkets.

Almave Blanco Blue Agave spirit (0%)
“A zero-proof tequila-style spirit may not be the first thing you’d think to turn to but this was an unexpected hit,” said Joanne Gould in The Guardian. Almave was founded by Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and Mexican spirits group Casa Lumbre and, once you pop the stopper on a bottle, you are met with an “immediately distinctive” and “extremely convincing” agave aroma, with the taste to match. It is “genuinely nice even for sipping straight” but, when mixed into a spicy margarita, it is “fantastic”.

Wild Idol sparkling wine (0%)
This is perfect for a “special” occasion, said Hermione Blandford in Shortlist. Unlike other similar products, this alcohol-free drink is made with grapes, so it “looks the part” and “tastes the part” of wine. It comes with a hefty price tag (bottles start from around £29.99), so it is a luxury option, but is definitely “worth it”.

Château La Coste Sparkling Rosé (0%)
Such is the “booming” trend for no- and low-alcoholic drinks, “even the bastions of Bordeaux and Provence” are trying to tap into it, said Reynolds in Tatler. And this rosé, in particular, is a “perfect example” of how non-alcoholic wines can compete with the real thing. It’s been de-alcoholised, with the “red and citrus fruit flavours” preserved. Though it may not have quite the same “mouth-feel”, expect delicate “hints of jasmine, conjuring summers in the South of France”.

The outstanding beigeness of Keir Starmer
Sam Leith in The Spectator 
“I am honestly surprised and bewildered by how useless” Keir Starmer “has turned out to be” as prime minister, writes Sam Leith. “Where’s the drama? Where’s the life?” Even “when the head of state of a sovereign nation is kidnapped” by the “armed forces of another, he doesn’t dare say” that it sets a “concerning precedent”. If Starmer continues like this, “the question won’t be so much whether he’s in power as how anyone is supposed to tell”.

Why the melt-up is still on
Katie Martin in the Financial Times
As 2026 begins, the markets “pessimists appear to be giving up the fight“, writes Katie Martin. Those “dark days” when Donald Trump’s “whackadoodle global trade policy” sent stocks “careering lower” are now a “distant memory”. Even “bubble anxiety” about tech firms hasn’t dampened the mood: “Wall Street thinks we’re heading into a great year”. Investors aren’t “complacent about the risks” but “it’s very much starting to feel like the only way is up”.

I’m a man and I’m sick of being asked about my feelings
Stefano Hatfield in The i Paper
“There is a particular modern anxiety” about men who seem “to be enjoying themselves without talking very much”, writes Stefano Hatfield. Just “what feelings are being dangerously stockpiled beneath the surface”? Actually, “many men do want to talk about their feelings”, but they “don’t want to be told when, how, or by whom”. We should not “harangue men into disclosure” or mistake silence for “refusal”. If “given time, trust and the absence of instruction, many will talk”.