Podcast co-host says tongue-in-cheek that ex-Manchester United captain would like to sign up for his show

With an all-conquering podcast empire and a new deal that will make his football punditry show a regular fixture on Netflix, there seems little left for Gary Lineker to wish for.

However, while the former Match of the Day presenter is full of praise for Alan Shearer and Micah Richards – the fellow pundits on his The Rest Is Football show – Lineker has admitted to admiring a combative figure playing for his main rivals.

Restore Britain leader paid up to £1,476 an hour by platform, which critics say is financially incentivising inflammatory content

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, is on course to earn as much from the social media platform X as he does from his salary as an MP, after surging income from posts that include demands for mass deportations.

Lowe has earned £932 an hour for his posts on X, formerly Twitter, since the start of the year, according to his own declarations in the register of MPs’ financial interests, which detail how many hours he has spent on X for each payment he received from the platform.

Content creators are fighting proposal to boost traditional broadcasters in video platforms’ all-powerful algorithms

The millions who subscribe to the content creator Simon Squibb’s social media channels are usually delivered tips and hacks on how to turn their dream business idea into reality. But they were recently presented with something completely different.

In an Instagram post entitled “the government wants to control YOU”, Squibb issued an urgent call to arms. He asked his followers to fight against a proposal that he said could force content from the BBC and other traditional broadcasters into their social media feeds and recommendations whether they liked it or not.

The Sussexes are returning to the UK with significantly reduced media deals in an industry where fame alone can no longer guarantee success

Having settled in California in the aftermath of their dramatic decoupling from the royal family in 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced a partnership that appeared to set a clear destination for their new lives outside the House of Windsor.

With every global media stable clamouring for their signature, the couple revealed a deal with Netflix reportedly worth $100m. The ambitions were lofty and broad, including scripted and unscripted projects, shows for all ages and documentaries.

Brandon Relph, who founded first company at 13, joins strategy team in ‘much-needed step’ for the broadcaster

A 26-year-old business prodigy and self-styled gen Z whisperer has been drafted in by the BBC as it battles to reach young audiences increasingly choosing content creators on YouTube and TikTok over traditional broadcasters.

Brandon Relph, who founded his first company aged 13, and has been praised by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has joined the BBC’s strategy team to help counter the existential threat of falling audiences among young people.

Tributes paid across industry to provocative journalist who died after short illness

The writer and broadcaster Rod Liddle, a prominent columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun, has died after a short illness. He was 66.

Liddle, whose provocative style attracted praise and criticism, also wrote for the Spectator magazine and earlier in his career edited BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised amid ‘a narrowing of the public conversation’

Journalists are self-censoring their reporting on rightwing protests, Donald Trump’s administration and trans issues because of growing concerns about their personal safety, with newsrooms accused of “normalising” the risks they face.

Hundreds of journalists from across the UK have anonymously disclosed increasing nervousness over their security. Some have reported avoiding or altering coverage on certain topics due to intimidation, leading to self-censorship and “a narrowing of the public conversation”.

MPs and others condemn behaviour of CT Group, which offered cash for positive coverage of clients

A political lobbying firm secretly paying journalists for articles favourable to its clients is facing calls to reveal full details of the payments, after the practice was denounced as a dangerous “attack on democracy”.

MPs, senior lobbyists and transparency campaigners all condemned the behaviour of CT Group, the firm co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, an election guru previously hired by David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

BBC’s average audience was 9.7m, four times as much as its rival – similar to its lead four years ago

Their respective World Cup studios have been pored over, their lineup of pundits analysed almost as much as the matches. But when it came to the tournament’s final, the result was clear – audiences once again picked the BBC over ITV.

Four times as many people turned to the BBC to watch Spain secure victory over a belligerent Argentina, very similar to its lead over ITV four years ago.

‘Strong confrontation’ comes at fragile moment for Reform’s relations with rightwing media as coverage turns negative

Nigel Farage is no stranger to expressing his ire at what he regards as the liberal establishment, but even figures close to him were surprised at the tirade of anger he unleashed upon the editor of the Times.

The exchange, which is said to have included an expletive aimed at Tony Gallagher, was triggered by the Reform UK leader’s outrage that the paper was planning to run a story about his houses, which he said endangered his family.

Republican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her

A US senator has accused Meta of using lawfare in “efforts to destroy” a whistleblower who made allegations about the social media company’s dealings with China and its treatment of teenagers.

In a letter to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, the Republican senator Josh Hawley demanded to know what measures Meta had taken to monitor Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook’s former global head of public policy, and her family.

Host of The Claudia Winkleman Show was ‘just too nervous to enjoy it’

When the BBC revealed Claudia Winkleman was to be given her own chatshow, she deployed her trademark self-deprecation to note that it “might be excruciating”. Yet after just one series, it is the presenter – rather than the audience or guests – that has found the show to be too much of an ordeal.

The all-conquering host of The Traitors and former Strictly Come Dancing presenter has quit The Claudia Winkleman Show after just one series, saying she was “too nervous to enjoy” the conversations with the great and the good who visited her sofa.

Court of appeal rules Labour donor suffered ‘obvious injustice’ over photo next to the words ‘sex harassment’

The green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince is in line to receive damages from the publisher of the Daily Mail after claiming it used his picture to mislead millions of readers.

Vince, who has given more than £5m to Labour over several years, took legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over an article, published in June 2023, headlined “Labour repays £100,000 to sex pest donor”.

Decades after the Falklands war and Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal, the fixture is once again being discussed as far more than a game

When Argentina’s national football team burst into the dressing room after beating Switzerland 3-1, they celebrated by singing The Fourth Star, the country’s unofficial World Cup anthem.

“For Malvinas, for Diego,” Lionel Messi and his teammates chanted, invoking both the Falkland Islands – known as Islas Malvinas in Argentina – and their football legend Diego Maradona.

Ex-presenter of BBC Radio 4 show complains in Guardian of ‘gratuitous gratitude’ and ‘gushing’ between host and guest

For more than three decades, John Humphrys delighted and infuriated listeners in equal measure as he confronted the nation’s politicians in his trademark, pointed style on the Today programme.

Now a listener himself, the former presenter of the BBC’s flagship radio news show is just as pointed in his assessment of the current incarnation of the programme. His verdict? It’s irritating.

High court dismisses claims by group including Duke of Sussex that Mail publisher used unlawful methods to source stories about them

Prince Harry and six other prominent figures are facing a legal bill of up to £50m after losing their case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over claims it used unlawful methods to source stories.

In an emphatic ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal era, the high court dismissed all the group’s claims, stating that the claimants had not proved that any information had been obtained unlawfully.

Axel Springer boss has ‘bold vision’ for the media group, but identifying a gap is no guarantee of stateside success

As he addressed staff at the London headquarters of the Telegraph Media Group last week, Mathias Döpfner, the German chief executive of Axel Springer and latest proprietor of the most traditional of conservative British newspapers, referred to his company’s decades-long pursuit of the venerable titles.

As staff nibbled Axel Springer-embossed biscuits, Döpfner also exchanged some distinctly European ribbing with the Daily Telegraph’s editor, Chris Evans, about Germany’s World Cup exit. However, it was clear to all that Döpfner’s ambitions for the titles were focused on another country and another continent.

Anonymous individual arrested after claims of sexual misconduct on reality TV show and police calls for contact

A cast member from Married at First Sight UK has been arrested on suspicion of rape, after claims of sexual misconduct on the reality TV show.

The individual and the alleged victim are not being named. Alleged victims of rape have the legal protection of anonymity.

Editor-in-chief has developed network of UK thinkers she believes reject what she regards as overly ‘woke’ consensus

In the six years since she very publicly resigned from the New York Times, and in her tumultuous eight months as editor-in-chief of one of the US’s most prestigious television networks, Bari Weiss has become renowned as a media disruptor and challenger of what she regards as an overly “woke” journalistic consensus.

As Weiss continues to face bitter internal and external opposition to her leadership of CBS News, she has been turning to figures from UK journalism in her attempts to tackle what she sees as US newsroom “groupthink”.

Staff at Radio 4 show, which has 5 million listeners, told making content for likes of TikTok will take precedence for correspondents

The task of briefing the nation on Radio 4’s agenda-setting Today programme has been one of the most urgent tasks facing the BBC’s top journalists for decades.

Insiders at the corporation, however, say that duty has effectively been downgraded, after an edict that will result in correspondents prioritising making content for TikTok, Instagram and other digital platforms.