Andy Burnham has announced military support for Saudi Arabia in operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen, in a bid to avoid further disruption to global energy supplies. A statement from the Ministry of Defence confirmed that an RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling aircraft is to be deployed to bolster Saudi “defensive activity in support of the legitimate government of Yemen”.

Why is the UK getting involved?
The conflict between Iranian-backed Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has reignited in recent weeks as the rebels aim missile and drone attacks at targets in Saudi Arabia. The rebels have also seized the strategically vital Yemeni port city of Mokha and declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which around 12% of global trade passes.

The Associated Press reported last week that Saudi Arabia was running low on missile interceptors and had “turned to regional and Western allies for assistance”. Defence Minister Luke Pollard told Sky News that the UK was stepping up “in support of our own national security”, but Burnham alluded to another reason closer to home, citing the need to “keep those pathways open” in the interest of “cost-of-living pressures”.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait has been used increasingly as an alternative route for oil exports, bypassing disruption in the ⁠Strait of Hormuz. Any blockade would drive up global energy prices even further.

Could the UK get dragged into a wider conflict?
The support builds on the UK’s existing military contribution to Saudi Arabia’s air defence, including the deployment of equipment and of UK personnel helping to protect against missile and drone attacks. The use of the RAF Voyager, normally based in Cyprus, is expected to start within days and to be focused on defensive capabilities. But it could also “include shooting down drones, which is considered a defensive measure”, said The Independent. The deployment will be time-limited, with the initial agreement believed to be for a matter of weeks, but Burnham said it will be kept under review.

Men outnumber women on this year’s Booker Prize list, but a key subject matter in their work is “more revealing” than any author’s “identity characteristics”, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Times. The shortlisted authors span a “generational arc”, stretching from 40-year-old Rebecca Perry to the “81-year-old veteran of experimental speculative fiction” M. John Harrison. But an “overarching theme” has emerged: “masculine authority in crisis – and discomfort”. These are tales of fathers, sons and husbands “struggling to inhabit the roles, structures and stories that are supposed to contain them”.

‘Weight of male expectation’
Luke Kennard’s brilliantly funny campus novel, “Black Bag”, sees an out-of-work actor paid to lurk inside a “leather suit bag, as status and confidence evaporate”, said Thomas-Corr. And Douglas Stuart “examines the weight of male expectation” in “John of John”, a story about a young gay art student who returns to his repressive home in the Hebrides. 

In “The Disappearers”, Marlon James charts how masculinity is “brutally policed” in a murderous homophobic attack in 1980s Jamaica, while Harrison “tests the masculine survivalist fantasy of practical competence” in his “unsettling” post-apocalyptic tale “The End of Everything”.

‘Mastery of the world’
The female authors on the list also turn their lens on male characters: Elizabeth Strout’s book “The Things We Never Say” is a domestically precise portrayal of an increasingly isolated husband, while Perry follows a “reluctant medieval monarch who inherits the ultimate ‘great man’ role without wanting it” in “May We Feed the King”, said Thomas-Corr. The books reject the very things that male protagonists would once have taken “for granted”, from sexual legitimacy and paternal authority to economic security and “mastery of the world”.

Last year’s winner, David Szalay’s “Flesh”, a rags-to-riches story about a Hungarian man catapulted into the world of the super-wealthy, sparked much debate about “literary fiction’s renewed interest in masculinity”, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer. This year’s list will only intensify the discussion, “the theme of which might be summed up as: are men OK?”

Booker Prize judge and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker said it was a “surprise” that four novels written by men had ended up on this year’s shortlist of six – because, “generally speaking, the male-written books weren’t as good as the ones written by women”. The male authors still in the running for the prestigious 2026 literary award are those who are able to “rethink their roles”.

The Prince and Princess of Wales attend the world premiere of “Digger” in London alongside the film’s star Tom Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Other famous faces at the screening in Leicester Square included David Beckham, Salma Hayek and Hannah Waddingham.

Chris Jackson / Getty Images / Warner Bros.

Aardman Animations is back with its third feature starring Shaun the Sheep, “the claymation lamb with a heart of gold”, said Empire. The Halloween-themed new film, “The Beast of Mossy Bottom”, sees Shaun and his loyal flock accidentally turn their “beloved if ungainly farmer” into a “Bigfoot-like monster who terrorises the local village”.

Half a century has passed since Peter Lord and David Sproxton set up Aardman, but the stop-motion animation remains “as sharp as ever”. Here are some of the studio’s other prime films.

Chicken Run (2000)
Like every Aardman film, the premise is straightforward – “The Great Escape” with chickens – but “such is the animators’ ability to humanise the birds’ plight that it turns into an improbably emotional epic”, said The Guardian. An instant hit, the film proved Aardman could “hold its own” in Hollywood.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
The beloved man-and-dog pair returned for this “perfectly made” feature in which their relationship starts to strain when Wallace “begins relying too much on his robot garden gnome”, said IndieWire. Beyond the “glossy and gorgeous” claymation, what really makes the film stand out is the return of the “terrifyingly evil” Feathers McGraw.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
Inspired by Aardman’s TV series about a “clever, enterprising” sheep, the film takes the show’s “bare-bones premise and runs wild with it”, said Vulture. Featuring “kid-friendly sight gags” and “adult-friendly puns”, it’s a fun watch for the whole family. But its meditation “on urban alienation” also makes it potentially “the most emotionally mature film in Aardman’s catalogue”.

It’s Time to Cry Wolf Over A.I.
Thomas L Friedman in The New York Times
The “biggest disaster stories”, writes Thomas L Friedman, tend to “have one big thing in common: a failure of imagination” by those at the top. Donald Trump’s “dismissal of fears” about artificial intelligence shows he is “uniquely unsuited” to the “sustained, coordinated governance” that could keep us safe. That’s “what was missing in the run-up” to his war with Iran, “and we are paying a huge price”. Imagine how much worse it could be if AI goes “off the rails”.

Could we be about to see the end of northern English dialects? My experience – and the science – says aye
Zahaan Bharmal in The Guardian
I’m a Londoner living in York and “I’ve never tried to change” my “southern tones”, writes Zahaan Bharmal. But I recently mentioned Tadcaster Road and “completely forgot to pronounce the ‘arse’ in the middle”. This accent “flexing” works the other way, too. In fact, scientists think “northern linguistic traits” may dissolve over time as “people move, marry, have children and absorb” each other’s words. “Like bubbles in a bath (pronounced ‘bath’ or ‘bar-th’)”, dialect boundaries merge and reshape “wherever they touch”. 

High time we woke up to the state we’re in
Alice Thomson in The Times 
Fly-tipping, shop-lifting, fare-dodging, running red lights: so many Britons “lack a sense of civic duty, social obligation or deference to the law”, writes Alice Thomson. And the “diligent majority” who do “follow rules” increasingly “feel like mugs for having morals”. The government must “tackle the rise in hyper individualism”. “Much as he hates being seen as the bad guy”, Andy Burnham needs to “shame the cheats whose ‘right’ to do as they please” is “ruining life” for the rest of us.