Andy Burnham said British politics “needs a new script” as he launched his campaign for the Makerfield by-election this morning. The Greater Manchester mayor said a vote for him was a “vote to change Labour” but insisted the by-election was not a “stepping stone” to becoming prime minister. Meanwhile, the Green Party’s candidate, who shared posts describing the attack on Jewish ambulances in north London in March as a “false flag” operation, has withdrawn from the ballot less than 12 hours after his candidature was announced, citing “personal and family reasons”. The police investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is considering a number of offences, including sexual misconduct and corruption. Thames Valley Police are appealing for potential victims and witnesses after uncovering evidence in searches at the former prince’s various homes. English Heritage has unveiled a seven-metre-tall replica of a prehistoric neolithic hall, which will form part of the Stonehenge visitor centre. The structure (below), which will open to the public this summer, was built by a team of volunteers over nine months using flint axes, chalk daub and thatch.

There’s a reason Iran is so obsessed with seeing off meddling foreigners and gaining nuclear weapons, says Peter Frankopan in UnHerd: “history”. Today’s Islamic Republic reserves a special ire for the US and Israel – the “Great Satan” and “Little Satan” respectively. But Britain, France and Russia have all been hated too, in their time. And you can see why. Since the early 19th century, the once-all-conquering Persia (renamed Iran in the 1930s) has found itself repeatedly caught between stronger imperial powers. Defeats in the Russo-Persian wars (in the early 1800s) led to the humiliating loss of vast territories in the Caucasus, including what are now Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. London, obsessed with protecting India, used Persia as a battleground in the “Great Game” against Russia, as bankers, diplomats and spies infested Tehran, ready to defend the “jewel of the British Empire” at any cost.

Throughout, Iran’s tiny ruling elite – the old Qajar dynasty and then the British-backed Pahlavis who supplanted them in 1925 – has made foolish deals with foreign imperialists, taking huge loans from banks in London and Paris, or selling concessions on ludicrous terms. In 1827, the Anglo-German entrepreneur Paul Julius de Reuter was able to buy rights encompassing not only “the mines of coal, iron, copper, lead and petroleum” across the whole of Persia, but also options to build roads, public works and other infrastructure projects. An incredulous Lord Curzon called it “the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamed of, much less accomplished, in history”. In 1908, William Knox d’Arcy secured similar terms for Persia’s newly discovered oil. Is it any wonder Iranians, having had a revolution against all this, won’t give it up without a fight?

The candidates in the Makerfield by-election will no doubt say the area has been “left behind” by Westminster, says Bagehot in The Economist. But if Makerfield is left behind, “so is the rest of Britain”. Its median weekly wages are £762, only a fraction below the national average. A child in the constituency is “no more likely to be in poverty than one picked at random from the rest of England”. Winstanley College, a local sixth-form, is among the best in the country – it sends as many students to Oxbridge as does Dulwich College, Nigel Farage’s £32,000-a-year alma mater in south London.

The Instagram account @artbutmakeitsports has racked up hundreds of thousands of followers for its posts juxtaposing (largely American) sporting moments with classic paintings. A shot of basketballer Anthony Edwards taunting a rival matches Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus, for example, while a picture of NFL quarterback Aaron Rogers getting “tossed around like a rag doll” bears a striking resemblance to Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa. To see more, click here.

More than half the nation now watches TV with subtitles, says Carol Midgley in The Times. This, believe it or not, isn’t just us oldsters, who occasionally have to suffer the humiliation of our progeny bursting into the room holding their ears and screaming: “Good God, mother, turn it down!” The reason subtitles have taken off is partly so that Gen Zs can “double screen”, partly because directors in search of a “naturalistic performance” now encourage mumbling, and partly because of the “ludicrous” overuse of deafening, torturous background music. Still, at least subtitle “fails” provide some amusement. No one can forget the weatherman who forecast “heavy breasts in the west of Scotland”, or the time the BBC subtitles called the Chinese new year the “Year of the Whores”.

Much worse is when the subtitles get it right. No one wants to be “sucking peppermints with their Aunty Pam” when the words, “Yes! Yes! Harder!” and “Is that good for you, baby?” pop up on screen, or certain sound effects are described as “[groans of pleasure]” or “[squelching]”. Not that we need subtitles for things to accidentally come out badly, of course. Remember commentator Harry Carpenter, who, after the Boat Race in 1977, said: “Oh, isn’t that nice? The wife of the Cambridge president is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew.” Or Ken Brown commentating on the golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson at the Scottish Open. “Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny,” said Ken. “Other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.”

Xi Jinping may be the world’s most powerful autocrat, says Tom Newton Dunn in War & Peace, but that doesn’t mean he’s above “schoolboy power games”. On day two of his Beijing summit with Donald Trump last week, the Chinese president, despite being four inches shorter than his American counterpart, managed to appear noticeably higher than him as the pair sat fielding questions. The extra height was apparently thanks to some “crafty cushion work”.

Keir Starmer’s announcement this week that the UK would loosen sanctions on Russian crude oil led to heavy criticism, says Owen Matthews in The Independent. But few people realise quite how reliant Europe remains on Moscow’s supplies. Over the course of the Ukraine war the continent has been the second biggest buyer of Vladimir Putin’s gas, after China, spending €260bn. Millions of tonnes of Russian crude have been fraudulently pumped from one tanker to another with “clean” paperwork off the coasts of Denmark and Greece, to avoid sanctions. Since the war began, Europe has given more to Russia for fossil fuels than to Kyiv for defence.

It’s the Hydromax, says Ollie Marriage in Top Gear Magazine, a 32ft bespoke vehicle designed by the British construction firm JCB in a bid to break the world hydrogen-powered land speed record. The speedy streamliner, which is powered by engines used in the latest JCB diggers, will be driven across the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah this August with the aim of hitting speeds of around 400mph. The firm has form in the area: in 2006, the JCB Dieselmax set the diesel-powered world land speed record (350mph) on the same terrain.