These visualisations from exclusive polling modelling show how the UK parliament could change under different voting systems

New analysis produced exclusively for the Guardian reveals how different voting systems would return significantly different seat totals in the UK parliament, based on recent polling.

While the current first past the post (FPTP) system could leave Labour short of a majority with 250 seats, the modelling shows how proportional systems would be likely to reduce the number of seats given to the leading party – and give the UK a more finely balanced parliament that better represents the votes people cast.

Be it her pioneering approach to consumer injustice or her extraordinary tackling of systemic social issues, the broadcaster was at the forefront of what television could be

• Esther Rantzen, TV presenter and Childline founder, dies aged 86

• Esther Rantzen: from That’s Life! to Childline – in pictures

Esther Rantzen’s early CV reads like a chronicle of the world working as the 1960s thought it should. A smart young woman, privately educated in north London from the age of 10 (the Rantzens had previously lived in New York), then at Somerville College, Oxford, she started on the bottom rung and had exactly the right mixture of graft and luck. Having trained as a radio studio manager, she got her first TV production job as a researcher for BBC-3, Ned Sherrin’s satirical show in the mid-60s. From there, she went to Braden’s Week, a magazine show hosted by Bernard Braden, a serendipitous connection for two reasons – first, he put his researchers on screen, then he decided to return to his native Canada. From there, That’s Life! was born, with Rantzen as the main presenter. It was 1973, and it was conceived as a new, revamped Braden’s Week. In reality, it was nothing like it.

That’s Life! ebbed and flowed over its 21 years, but at its various peaks, it would draw in audiences of more than 22 million. It definitely became more searching and serious as it went on, but even from the start, it would have bizarre and audacious gear changes, from an item about funny-shaped vegetables to another on lethal patio doors without skipping a beat. That is not to cast shade on the lighter material: there was a dog called Prince that could say “sausages”, and a generation of us have not been able to eat sausages without saying “sausages” in Prince’s voice at least once since. It was delightful to watch partly because there was so much texture to the studio audience’s laughter: there’s one part affection for the dog, one part affection for the owner, five parts, dude, your dog is not saying “Anthony”, and then this wild overflow of excitement when the Yorkie says something that definitely sounds like “sausages”. Then, wham, the next story would be a toddler with life-changing injuries from a poorly surfaced playground, then Victoria Wood would come on and be funny.

Dad’s the word for Andy Burnham, so maybe all party leaders should be seen afresh through a Freudian lens

Is this the sketch my father would have wanted? Not something I have previously given much thought to. He died 15 years before I even started this job. But my guess is that it is. He was the loveliest of men who only ever wanted for me what I wanted for me. He was stupidly proud of even my most forgettable successes. I still see him in my dreams, cheering me on. He’d almost certainly be embarrassed, but secretly pleased, to find himself in the first paragraph.

But that’s enough about my father issues. Time now to talk about Andy Burnham’s. In his emotional and gamechanging leader’s speech on Tuesday – I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have a politician other than Nigel Farage say exactly what he thinks and believes – Andy told us he wanted to build the country his father would have wanted. It was almost a debt of honour. Burnham was very precise. This was not his vision. This wasn’t the country he wanted to build. It was the one his dad had wanted. Andy was merely a conduit, channelling Roy, who died earlier this month.

The price cap is to soar for about 20 million households in Great Britain from January, but there are ways to save

• Energy bills in Great Britain forecast to jump by £276 a year from January

Household energy prices are set to soar in January, with a typical bill forecast to jump by £276 to the equivalent of nearly £2,000 year.

It is a worrying outlook but there are practical steps you can take to mitigate the predicted price shock.

This shaggy beast is now plastered across everything from mugs to hot water bottles. Or you can sit on her, wrap yourself in her, wipe your feet on her …

Picture this: you get home from work, wipe your feet on your doormat, which has a picture of a highland cow on it, sniff the flowers growing from your highland cow-shaped plant pot, then step inside, hang your coat on one of your highland-cow-themed hooks and put some water on to boil in your highland cow kettle. When the tea is ready, you drink it from one of your highland cow mugs, plucked from a highland cow mug tree, discarding the teabag in a highland cow-emblazoned pedal bin. Oops, you’ve spilled a drop, but not to worry – there’s a fresh roll of kitchen roll waiting for you in between the resin cow-butt and cow-head of its highland cow-shaped holder.

You then carry the tea to your living room, and place it (atop a highland cow coaster, of course) on your coffee table, which has been carved into the shape of a highland cow, before taking a seat in an accent chair made to resemble a highland cow’s head. If you get cold, you can always wrap yourself in a hooded throw, designed to make the wearer look like a highland cow, or reach for your dressing gown-wearing highland cow hot-water bottle.

Prime minister’s pure political argument marks new era for party as he sets out his plans and priorities

The hottest ticket at Labour conference – after Andy Burnham’s speech – was an afterparty in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, headlined with a set by the noughties girlband Sugababes. As Labour activists and ministers belted out the lyrics under pink spotlights, it was hard not to draw some parallels with the party’s recent history.

There have been painful lineup changes and a lot of internal division, but this week onstage in Liverpool the originals are back together and they only played the hits. The fans can’t get enough.

Senior Downing Street officials reach out to thinktanks and pollsters as they look to test backing for reversing Brexit

Senior Downing Street officials have been reaching out to thinktanks and pollsters as they look to test public support for the UK rejoining the EU.

Aides to Andy Burnham have been talking to EU experts in a range of organisations about how the public would view a promise to rejoin, as momentum builds behind including such a pledge in the next Labour manifesto.

Accused pilot being questioned in Saudi Arabia as Israeli officials investigate if incident was attempted terror attack

One of the pilots of a plane flying from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed his co-pilot and appeared to try to crash the aircraft, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said, as Israeli officials said they were investigating whether the incident was an attempted terror attack on Israelis.

Eyewitnesses reported chaos onboard as the attacker tried to barricade himself and the wounded co-pilot in the cockpit, and then attempted to disable the controls, forcing the plane to descend 17,000 feet in just two minutes.

PM also defends decision to release suspects on bail and expresses ‘complete confidence’ in security services

There are “strong indications” that Iran played a role in events in which five men were arrested near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire as part of a terror investigation, Andy Burnham has said.

Speaking to the media at the end of the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Burnham said he could not give any more details amid a police investigation, but that Iran was believed to be involved.

• Club ‘a huge partner in building modern Manchester’

• Independent Football Regulator monitoring case

Andy Burnham has said he would be “really concerned” to lose Manchester City’s owners as a result of the club being found guilty of more than 100 breaches of Premier League rules.

On the day that the Independent Football Regulator confirmed it has powers to investigate the suitability of the Abu Dhabi United Group to own an English club after the damning judgment of an independent commission regarding £900m of sham contracts, the prime minister praised City’s owners for their investment of billions of pounds into Manchester.