The US health secretary’s ‘digital affair’ with Olivia Nuzzi doesn’t need sombre analysis. Take it from this Brit: sometimes laughter is the only option

Literally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it’s more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we’re in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined – and so loudly – that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you’re missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.

I don’t deny that everything’s bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching … poetry, is it … felching poetry? … to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it’s Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

It used to be all boozy lunches and late-night carousing. Now it’s hyperbaric chambers and longevity chat. Andrew Carnie, CEO of the private club, explains how life and trends have changed since the Covid era

Friday night in the north of England. On the ninth floor of the old Granada Studios, a very chi-chi crowd is drinking tequila and eating crisps. Not Walkers out of the bag, mind, but canapes of individual crisps with creme fraiche and generous dollops of caviar. A young woman – leather shorts, chunky boots, neon lime nails, artfully messy bob – winks at me from the other side of the silver tray. “Ooh, caviar. Very posh for Manchester.”

Soho House’s 48th members’ club has caused quite the stir. Thirty years after Nick Jones opened the first club in Soho, London, the first north of England outpost of the empire is raising eyebrows. An exclusive club, in the city that AJP Taylor described as “the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery”. (The home, after all, of the Guardian.) An open-air rooftop pool, in the climate that fostered the textile industry because the rain created the perfect cool, damp conditions for spinning cotton. Will it work?

It’s love at first bite for diners. From cheese puffs to tuna eclairs, chefs are putting some of their best ideas on the snack menu

Elliot’s in east London has many hip credentials: the blond-wood colour scheme, the off-sale natural wine bottles, LCD Soundsystem and David Byrne playing at just the right decibel. The menu also features the right buzzwords, such as “small plates” and “wood grill”.

But first comes “snacks”. There are classics: focaccia, olives, anchovies on toast. But more creative options include potato flatbreads with creme fraiche and trout roe, mangalitsa saltimbocca with quince, and what became (and has stayed) the Hackney restaurant’s signature dish since around 2012, Isle of Mull cheese puffs: plump, gooey croquettes filled with Scottish cheddar and comté, deep-fried until crisp and topped with yet more grated cheddar. Only two other dishes have never left the menu: fried potatoes with aïoli and cheesecake.

Bleary-eyed in pyjamas in a new film, Jacinda Ardern’s pleas for compassion are hard to ignore. But in real crises, the fallibility of politicians can be terrifying

The camera catches Jacinda Ardern in her pyjamas, bleary-eyed with exhaustion. It follows her wiping crumbs off the worktops, breastfeeding, trying to take a phone call while simultaneously retrieving something her curious toddler has picked up off her desk. They are scenes many frazzled, distracted working parents will recognise, except that at the time she was the prime minister of New Zealand and these home movies – shot on her husband’s phone, originally for family consumption – have since been turned into a documentary premiering in British cinemas this December.

Prime Minister, the movie, is the latest step in Ardern’s campaign for politicians to be allowed to reclaim their humanity, which broadly means the public accepting that they are grappling with the same private pressures as the rest of us (and no doubt similarly making a hash of it at times). It was the message of her recent memoir, A Different Kind of Power, and in some ways of her time in office, made only more urgent lately by the avalanche of violent threats and abuse heaped on anyone in public life – as if by getting elected they had become instantly dehumanised.

Our cartoonist on a simple win over Spurs that boosted the Gunners’ title hopes, smug Australians and more

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At Maple Farm, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. All due to the vision of a group determined to accelerate its recovery

The manically melodic song of the nightingale is a rare sound in Britain these days, but not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a single bird could be heard at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” says Meg Cookson, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders, pointing to the woodland around us. A group of Youngwilders were camping out at the site, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba, the group’s engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the nightingales the next morning, Cookson recalls: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was crying.”

Rewilding is by definition a slow business, but here at Maple Farm, after just four years, the results are already visible, and audible. The farm used to be a retirement home for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to accelerate nature recovery, in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and to connect young people (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often excluded from, and a climate crisis they are often powerless to prevent. Global heating continues, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in Brazil – so who could blame young people for wanting to take matters into their own hands?

Unpaid carers were pushed into debt and distress and hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money wasted

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Repeated failures by Tory ministers and top welfare officials pushed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt and distress, and led to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being wasted, a devastating review has concluded.

The independent review of carer’s allowance benefit overpayments identified “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules.

PM says party’s leadership should ‘have the courage to launch an investigation’

John McFall is standing down early as Lord Speaker in the House of Lords so that he can care for his wife, Joan, who has was Parkinson’s. According to Sam Blewett and Bethany Dawson in their London Playbook briefing for Politico, the main candidates to replace him are Michael Forsyth, a rightwing Scottish secretary in the final two years of the John Major government, and Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former Royal Opera House creative director. They reports:

Labour isn’t expected to put forward a candidate as McFall’s previous political affiliation means it’s seen as another party’s turn to rule the roost, Noah [Keate] writes in to say. Forsyth has garnered support from some Labour grandees who like his traditional approach and aversion to modernization while Bull has being promoted by some female peers keen for a woman to take charge. One Tory peer described Forsyth as a “political animal” who may struggle to encourage a consensus across the chamber. A list of candidates’ register of interests and election addresses (up to 300 words) will be emailed to all peers on Dec. 1. Watch your inboxes!

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander rejected a rival proposal from Arora Group, saying Heathrow’s own plans were “the most credible and deliverable option”.

The Heathrow proposals involve building a 3,500-metre runway and require a new M25 tunnel and bridges to be built 130 metres west of the existing motorway.

Following a comparative assessment of the remaining proposals for Heathrow expansion, the government’s view is that the Northwest runway scheme brought forward by Heathrow Airport Limited offers the most credible and deliverable option, principally due to the relative maturity of its proposal, the comparative level of confidence in the feasibility and resilience of its surface access plans, and the stronger comfort it provides in relation to the efficient, resilient and sustainable operations of the airport over the long-term.

The HAL scheme is considered comparatively more mature in its approach to road infrastructure. While the HAL scheme requires major works to the M25, assessment indicates that the HWL scheme would also have a considerable impact on the M25.

Dutch writer Rutger Bregman says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed

The BBC has been plunged into a new row over its treatment of Donald Trump, after an academic accused it of censoring his remarks about alleged corruption by the US president.

Rutger Bregman, a Dutch author and historian, said the BBC had removed a “key line” from a flagship address he had been invited to give by the corporation.

Health secretary tells MPs the government ‘will not look away as children get unhealthier’

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Sweet-toothed consumers face paying more for their bottled milkshakes and pre-packaged lattes after the government confirmed plans for a tougher sugar tax.

Designed to tackle obesity, the levy currently applies to drinks with a sugar content of 5g for each 100ml. However, after a public consultation this is being cut to 4.5g for each 100ml.