The Home Office’s decision to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation was unlawful, the High Court has ruled. The judgement said the ban was “disproportionate” to the current nature and scale of the protest group’s activities. The ruling could result in the collapse of hundreds of criminal prosecutions against the group’s supporters. Pupils in England will be allowed to change their gender at school and use different pronouns, including, in “exceptionally rare” instances, at primary school. New guidance published by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson says staff must consult parents over the decision, and that the children will still have to use facilities in line with their biological sex. London will get its first official swimming spot in the River Thames as part of new government plans to clean up the water in 13 designated bathing sites. Other dipping destinations include a tidal inlet of the River Yealm in Devon, the River Avon at Wiltshire’s Queen Elizabeth Gardens and Pangbourne Meadow in Berkshire.

Amid all the speculation and gossip and manoeuvring in Westminster this week, one outcome is beyond doubt, says Patrick Maguire in The Times: the Labour right’s leadership of their party and the government is over. That’s not my analysis – it’s the “logical conclusion” of everything Keir Starmer has said and done. The people he has washed his hands of – Peter Mandelson, Morgan McSweeney, his former communications director Matthew Doyle – were “indispensable” to him only a few months ago. They “interpreted politics for him”, and therefore set the terms on which his actions were interpreted by the media and the public. “Now he tells us those people were wrong.”

All of which means we will soon see a “demonstrative, iterative, apologetic” shift in power to Labour’s soft left: the likes of Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner and Lucy Powell. Some among them wanted to inflict the “coup de grâce” on the PM on Monday, but wiser heads prevailed. They know they have total control over the prime minister for the rest of his time in office. No doubt in the coming weeks we’ll hear tributes to a man “at last prepared to govern as his authentic self”. Don’t fall for it. This new “authentic self” will be the opposite of the authentic self that was briefed to hacks like me six months ago, which in turn was different to the authentic self I was told about a year ago, and a year before that. The one consistent feature of Starmer’s leadership is that he has always been defined by someone else. What comes next will be no different. As one of his friends tells me: “He’s been liberated… back into captivity.”

📉😐 With Andy Burnham blocked from becoming an MP, the two remaining “big beasts” in the running to succeed Starmer are Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting, says Ben Walker in The New Statesman. And voters can’t stand either. Rayner is popular with Labour members but her favourability ratings among the wider public are almost as low as Starmer’s. Streeting has “no purchase on the rank-and-file”, and among the small proportion of voters who have actually heard of him, “he is disliked”.

A couple of decades ago, says Nicky Haslam in The Spectator, I was staying in the same Corfu villa as Peter Mandelson. One evening our host blithely announced that Saif Gaddafi would be joining us, and soon enough the Libyan war prince arrived, “wrapped in skin-tight fatigues” and surrounded by a phalanx of black-uniformed men, “uzis akimbo”. I saw Peter “quiver”, and after some “manly ribaldry and much Mouton”, he and Gaddafi headed off for a private chat. On the flight home the following day, Peter opened his red ministerial box, looked up dreamily and said: “My God I fancy Saif Gaddafi.”

Back in 1959, Caper Magazine asked psychologist William Neutra to analyse what you can tell about someone – character traits, moods, insecurities – by how they smoked a cigarette. For more puffing profiles, click here.

When Donald Trump was re-elected, senior mandarins across the chancelleries of US allies resolved to hold their breath and wait, says Gideon Rachman in the FT. “Eventually, the old America would return.” A year later, the mood has shifted dramatically, as captured in Canadian PM Mark Carney’s Davos speech, in which he declared “the old order is not coming back”. The new “conventional wisdom” holds that Trump is not an aberration; that he represents profound forces in America that will not disappear when he leaves the White House; and that there will be no going back to the status quo ante, either internationally or in the US itself. Like all conventional wisdom, this is probably nonsense.

As Trump’s behaviour becomes more indefensible, both at home and abroad, “a genuine backlash is finally under way”. America’s allies are finding their courage – not just Carney but also Keir Starmer condemning Trump’s denigration of the efforts made by British and allied forces in Afghanistan. The backlash that will really matter is the one in America itself. “Here, too, there is finally some momentum.” Thousands of ordinary Americans took to the streets in Minneapolis; prominent Republicans have spoken out against the violence there, and against Trump’s threats to Greenland. Recent special elections have gone badly for MAGA, and the midterms in November could well deliver both the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democrats. Those who argue the US goose is cooked may feel they sound “worldly and realistic”, but history is full of restorations – Greece and India both wrestled democracy back from tyranny in the 1970s, and, going further back, England survived a civil war and an 11-year republic before restoring the monarchy in 1660. “Why dismiss the idea of an American restoration?”

🏛️🎻 Last week, when the speaker of the Polish parliament refused to sign a petition calling for Trump to receive the Nobel peace prize, another Polish MP explained it well: “The times when Nero, under threat of punishment, demanded recognition for his musical talents have been regarded as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire”.

The latest dietary fad among health-conscious young men on TikTok is “boy kibble”, says Max Berlinger in The New York Times: a batch-prepped bowl of rice, vegetables and ground beef. The dog food-inspired dinner has been lapped up by fitness enthusiasts looking to reduce body fat while still hitting their protein and fibre goals. One 28-year-old food influencer says he lost 9kg by eating the flavourless fuel twice a day with rotating yoghurt-based sauces over six months, while another says the dish’s “masculine edge” comes from the fact that “it’s kind of gross the longer you eat it”. So true, bro.

Poland is accustomed to provocations linked to Russia, says The Economist: railway sabotage, arson, drone incursions. But this “hybrid war” stepped up a gear on 29 December, when cyberattacks on 30 Polish energy facilities came dangerously close to causing a major power outage affecting up to 500,000 people, just as winter temperatures plummeted. It was the boldest attack yet on a civilian target with no connection to the Ukraine war.

It’s a new inflatable coat being showcased by Team USA at this year’s Winter Olympics, says Tom Ravenscroft in Dezeen. Nike’s Air Milano Jacket inflates and deflates with the aid of a small battery-powered fan, allowing wearers to regulate their temperature without having to add or remove layers. When deflated, the gimmicky garment acts as a windbreaker; when inflated, it’s as warm as a mid-weight puffer jacket. It’s the sportswear company’s first foray into using air in clothing, a technique it has used in its trainers since the late 1970s.