PM gives clearest indication yet of comeback, calling former deputy ‘the best social mobility story’ the country has seen

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has predicted that Angela Rayner will return to the cabinet, calling his former deputy, who resigned in September after underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase, “hugely talented”.

In an interview with the Observer , the prime minister described Rayner, who left school aged 16 without any qualifications, as “the best social mobility story this country has ever seen”.

PM gives clearest indication yet of comeback, calling former deputy ‘the best social mobility story’ the country has seen

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has predicted that Angela Rayner will return to the cabinet, calling his former deputy, who resigned in September after underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase, “hugely talented”.

In an interview with the Observer , the prime minister described Rayner, who left school aged 16 without any qualifications, as “the best social mobility story this country has ever seen”.

PM gives clearest indication yet of comeback, calling former deputy ‘the best social mobility story’ the country has seen

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has predicted that Angela Rayner will return to the cabinet, calling his former deputy, who resigned in September after underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase, “hugely talented”.

In an interview with the Observer , the prime minister described Rayner, who left school aged 16 without any qualifications, as “the best social mobility story this country has ever seen”.

The movement’s success was never a given. It took much longer and required repeated action and tremendous sacrifice, without any certainty it would work

The Montgomery bus boycott, which began 70 years ago on 5 December 1955, is now understood as one of the most successful American social movements. And yet, much of how it is remembered is romanticized, inaccurate and even dangerous – distorting how we imagine social change happens.

In the fable, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat, Black Montgomery residents rise up, a young Martin Luther King Jr is introduced to the world, and injustice is vanquished. The right action is all it takes – furthering a mythology that, without deep preparation or sacrifice, Americans can make great change with a single act. Today, in the face of rising injustice, many criticize young activists for being too disruptive, too disorganized, too impractical. But, in fact, the Montgomery movement began much earlier and took much longer than we imagine and entailed tremendous sacrifice. It required hard choice after hard choice without evidence these actions would matter, and was considered too disruptive by many at the time – all of which gives us important lessons for how to challenge injustice today.

Jeanne Theoharis is a distinguished professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the author of King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr’s Life of Struggle Outside the South and The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks.

The impending collapse of UK carsharing is an embarrassment for a government attempting to curb the dominance of cars

Zipcar, the world’s largest carsharing club, is leaving the UK. The company, which operates about 3,000 shared vehicles in Britain, has announced plans to shutter its UK operations at the end of the month. The news comes as a bitter blow to the hundreds of thousands of Britons who regularly rely on carsharing, and is a major setback in efforts to reduce emissions and traffic congestion.

I’m particularly gutted. This year I finally learned to drive, specifically in order to become a Zipcar member for the rare occasions when I need a vehicle. As newly qualified drivers aren’t allowed to hire Zipcars until they’ve held a licence for a year, I bought a secondhand VW Beetle to tide me over, counting the days until I could flog it and sign up for Zipcar instead. Now, with the service shutting up shop, I fear I will be stuck maintaining a costly lump of steel that I need for less than 1% of the year.

Phineas Harper is a writer and curator

National guard shooting prompts extraordinary outburst and targeting of people from startling range of countries

When the history of Donald Trump’s second presidency is written, 26 November 2025 may well go down as a particular landmark.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a lone gunman shot two West Virginia national guards, Sarah Beckstrom, and Andrew Wolfe, as they were on patrol outside Washington DC’s Farragut West metro station, a short walk from the White House – and thereby opened the floodgates to a wave of racist and anti-immigrant invective that seemed extreme even for Trump.

The movement’s success was never a given. It took much longer and required repeated action and tremendous sacrifice, without any certainty it would work

The Montgomery bus boycott, which began 70 years ago on 5 December 1955, is now understood as one of the most successful American social movements. And yet, much of how it is remembered is romanticized, inaccurate and even dangerous – distorting how we imagine social change happens.

In the fable, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat, Black Montgomery residents rise up, a young Martin Luther King Jr is introduced to the world, and injustice is vanquished. The right action is all it takes – furthering a mythology that, without deep preparation or sacrifice, Americans can make great change with a single act. Today, in the face of rising injustice, many criticize young activists for being too disruptive, too disorganized, too impractical. But, in fact, the Montgomery movement began much earlier and took much longer than we imagine and entailed tremendous sacrifice. It required hard choice after hard choice without evidence these actions would matter, and was considered too disruptive by many at the time – all of which gives us important lessons for how to challenge injustice today.

Jeanne Theoharis is a distinguished professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the author of King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr’s Life of Struggle Outside the South and The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks.

The impending collapse of UK carsharing is an embarrassment for a government attempting to curb the dominance of cars

Zipcar, the world’s largest carsharing club, is leaving the UK. The company, which operates about 3,000 shared vehicles in Britain, has announced plans to shutter its UK operations at the end of the month. The news comes as a bitter blow to the hundreds of thousands of Britons who regularly rely on carsharing, and is a major setback in efforts to reduce emissions and traffic congestion.

I’m particularly gutted. This year I finally learned to drive, specifically in order to become a Zipcar member for the rare occasions when I need a vehicle. As newly qualified drivers aren’t allowed to hire Zipcars until they’ve held a licence for a year, I bought a secondhand VW Beetle to tide me over, counting the days until I could flog it and sign up for Zipcar instead. Now, with the service shutting up shop, I fear I will be stuck maintaining a costly lump of steel that I need for less than 1% of the year.

Phineas Harper is a writer and curator

National guard shooting prompts extraordinary outburst and targeting of people from startling range of countries

When the history of Donald Trump’s second presidency is written, 26 November 2025 may well go down as a particular landmark.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a lone gunman shot two West Virginia national guards, Sarah Beckstrom, and Andrew Wolfe, as they were on patrol outside Washington DC’s Farragut West metro station, a short walk from the White House – and thereby opened the floodgates to a wave of racist and anti-immigrant invective that seemed extreme even for Trump.