The actor has a knack for playing characters that test viewers’ loyalties. As the Game of Thrones prequel returns, she talks problem fans, ‘boy mums’ and why the arts should be for everyone

House of the Dragon is a massive television series. Over two seasons, the prequel to Game of Thrones has seduced viewers with its plotting, backstabbing, candlelit meetings about war, and massive sheep-munching dragons. Olivia Cooke’s dad, however, did not get the memo.

We’re in London, on a stormy summer afternoon, and Cooke is sipping a bottle of neon juice (“Tell me if my teeth go purple”). Her dad texted her yesterday. She gets her phone and pulls up a photo of a television screen, with the first season of House of the Dragon loaded up and ready to go. “He said: ‘Raining outside, so starting a binge-watch.’” She laughs. “I was like, great, Dad, worked on it for six years, hope you like, kiss kiss.” What was his review? “Yes, I like it. Quite violent.” He was planning to watch another episode after he’d picked up Cooke’s nephew from school.

For one day every June, South Africa’s searing racial inequality seems to melt away at Comrades race

In the early morning dark, thousands of runners waited, jostling with anticipation. South Africa’s national anthem rang out. Then the haunting swell of Shosholoza, first sung by Zimbabwean migrant workers in South Africa’s goldmines. Finally, that unmistakable, spine-tingling piano: Chariots of Fire.

Runners gather before the start of the marathon

Doing the rounds of the Sunday studios, Peter Kyle sounded like someone who knew it would all be over come Monday

• UK politics – live updates

Not another one. Brenda from Bristol must be doing her nut. After sounding on Friday like the Japanese soldier who had no idea the second world war had ended decades earlier, sometime over the weekend reality had bitten for Keir Starmer. Maybe all he needed was a bit of time at Chequers to think straight. Maybe his family had also told him the game was over. But late on Saturday, reports emerged that he was planning to announce his resignation on Monday. Tellingly, there was not even one Starmer loyalist dampening down the speculation.

By the end of the summer, the UK will be on to its seventh prime minister in 10 years. There was a time when we used to make fun of the Italians for replacing their leaders every couple of years or so. Now they look like the model of stability. It is us who is the basket case. They will soon have to make more space at the Cenotaph Remembrance Sunday parade for the line of former prime ministers. Those we have loved. Those we haven’t. Those we have lost. No way of knowing if, at the going down of the sun, we will remember them. Nor is there any sign of things letting up. Who knows how many more prime ministers we will get through in the next decade.

Former party leaders reflect on the turbulence that followed the referendum in which most Scottish voters backed the losing side

The decision to quit the EU bolstered support for Scottish independence, which a decade after the Brexit referendum is at near record levels, according to Scottish Labour’s former leader Kezia Dugdale.

Dugdale said the Brexit vote “creates a frame around fairness” for many in Scotland because, unlike England, Scottish voters comprehensively backed remain in 2016, by 62% to 38%, yet found their country taken out of Europe.

Together my best friend Annabel Rook and I worked to support victims of gender-based violence – until she became one herself. Now I feel like a part of myself has been erased. Why aren’t more people outraged?

It is the summer of 2005, and we are staying on the sun-kissed shores of Busua, a coastal community in Ghana. The sand here is made of crushed pink shells. Annabel and I pick up handfuls and scrub our stained feet in the shallows. We’ve been wearing flip-flops for months, trailing through the rich red dust at the refugee settlement where we work. The Atlantic is rough and alive. Its tumbling motion and the wind are making me feel euphoric. Annabel is smiling to herself, too, and jumping in and out of waves.

“Mori,” she shouts, “it’s like being beaten up by an old friend!”

Meg was married to a man but had fantasised having sex with women for years. When she met Jess, her knees buckled

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I’d spent so many years visualising having sex with a woman

PM said to be reflecting on ‘political realities’, as president Trump joins in criticism of his leadership saying he has ‘failed badly’

• Keir Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday

Some commentators have said Andy Burnham is a better communicator than Keir Starmer, but have questioned how different he is on policy.

The Guardian’s policy editor, Kiran Stacey, has helpfully looked at the political projects a Burnham government would likely pursue in this useful explainer:

US president says in social media post ‘we’ll hit Iran very hard again’ if it does not stop its ‘proxies in Lebanon’

• US-Iran talks in Switzerland to get under way as strait of Hormuz remains closed

There ⁠was and is ‘no restriction’ on ⁠Israeli ⁠soldiers ​to act to eliminate ⁠threats in Lebanon, and that troops would not withdraw from the security zone, ‌Israeli defence minister ‌Israel Katz said in a statement on Sunday, according to Reuters.

Israeli strikes killed at ‌least 20 people in Lebanon ​on Saturday, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported, ⁠a day after a ​ceasefire with ​Iran-backed Hezbollah ​took effect ​after ‌months of ​escalating ​violence.

Artist had requested only his partner and great-nephew attend, with memorial services planned in places he lived

Only two people attended David Hockney’s funeral last week – in line with the British artist’s final wishes.

The two mourners at the private ceremony were Hockney’s 61-year-old partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, and his 33-year-old great-nephew, Richard Hockney, a photographer who worked as the artist’s assistant and frequently modelled for him. Both are trustees of the David Hockney Foundation, established by the artist in 2008.

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The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up... It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”

Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.