Analysis of countries’ broadcasting rules confirms Ofcom code is highly unusual, amid concerns about impartiality

The UK has been confirmed as an outlier in Europe for allowing Nigel Farage and other serving politicians to present TV shows covering current affairs, according to an unprecedented analysis of broadcasting rules.

Farage is one of a series of Reform UK figures who are permitted to present shows on the rightwing network GB News. The Reform MP Lee Anderson and former candidate Matt Goodwin also have regular slots on the channel.

Oscar-winning film-maker Barry Levinson’s docuseries Bucks County, USA examines the political divide in one town in a revealing and infuriating manner

Like many teenage best friends, Evi and Vanessa have a penchant for finishing each other’s sentences. Whether enmeshed on a couch or telling a story, one, a red-headed musical theater nerd with a personality nearly as boisterous as her signature puffy skirts, collides with the other, darker in hair and disposition, their speech bubbling with indecipherable affirmations and giggles. In a heady chorus of “duuude” and “no, you!”, it can be difficult to tell where one girl ends and the other begins.

Except, that is, at their respective homes. Evi’s mother, Lela, who like her daughter, espouses views considered left of liberal in the US context, speaks in support of LGBTQ students at local school board meetings and advocates for fact-based history lessons. Vanessa’s father, Paul Martino, is a right-leaning venture capitalist who likes to brag about installing school board members by spending $500,000 on local campaigns, an effort triggered by what he saw as unjustified school closures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Film-maker Jamie Roberts follows a Sussex man’s journey into the far right. If it wasn’t so horrific, parts could feel like they’d been written by Chris Morris

Standing in the street shouting virulent slogans or chanting loaded refrains about Islam was the mainstay of British far-right groups such as the EDL in the early 2010s. Now, that behaviour feels almost quaint. Recent weeks have seen major anti-immigration blockades in Dover led by balaclava-wearing men, and direct action against asylum seekers arriving on a small boat in Portsmouth.

Clearly, in 2026, the blame for much of the societal rot that has set in has been placed frequently at the feet of migrants, and vigilante tactics are on the rise. Channel 4’s one-off documentary arrives with depressing timeliness, then, telling a story that serves as a synecdoche for events playing out across the UK, at large. It is, says its maker, “the story of a community on the frontline of Britain’s broken asylum system, and one man’s journey into the heart of the far-right movement”.

Monsters of God is a jaw-dropping new series from the makers of the hit Netflix pandemic smash, exploring the murky world of exotic reptile smuggling

In 1993, a sci-fi blockbuster about an animal theme park that resurrected the dinosaurs sparked more than a flurry of interest in those long-extinct beasts. It left audiences jonesing for the next best thing: a close encounter with a bearded dragon or a ball python. Jeremy McBride, the Emmy-winning film-maker was one of them. “I wanted a pet iguana,” he said. In the wake of the Spielberg classic, reptiles have become fixtures of the modern imagination, adorning zoo exhibits, living room terrariums and every corner of pop culture while underpinning a multibillion-dollar pet trade.

But just as in Jurassic Park, the urgent danger isn’t the prehistoric creatures with the teeth and venom. It’s the people willing to steal, smuggle and kill for them. People like the Pablo Escobar of animal trafficking. “Our next documentary is going to be called Who Backstabbed Who,” jokes Eric Goode, an Emmy-nominated director. “You never know when that knife is going to go in your back because everyone’s trying to make a deal with the feds, with another reptile dealer. Even the good guys were supposedly doing bad things. It’s messy.”

Andy Burnham takes round one of the big byelection bout while Reform’s Rob Kenyon takes aim at himself

Seconds out … Round one. In the left corner we have the middleweight King of the North … Andy Burnham. In the far-right corner we have the total lightweight … Rob “The Plumber” Kenyon. On the undercard, we have three nonentities we can barely bring ourselves to mention. Mike “The Tory” Winstanley, Sarah “The Green” Wakefield and Jake “The Lib Dem” Austin. And if you think these three are dopey, you should see some of the other candidates in the Makerfield byelection who we didn’t invite.

Thursday night’s edition of BBC Question Time had come billed as the great showdown between Burnham and Kenyon with three no-hopers hung out as a veneer of impartiality. But no matter how much the presenter, Fiona Bruce, tried to hype up the programme as television gold, the excitement never really got started. The showdown was that the showdown never happened.

Dan Reed says the film recasts abuse allegations as lies and sidesteps Jackson’s relationships with children

Michael, the recently released biopic of Michael Jackson, has been severely criticised by the director of Leaving Neverland, the 2019 documentary that chronicled claims against Jackson of child sexual abuse by Wade Robson and James Safechuck.

In an interview with Variety, Dan Reed, who was subject to death threats after Leaving Neverland was released, said: “What the movie does is creates a version of events that essentially portrays Wade, James and others who’ve accused Jackson of child sexual abuse as liars without actually articulating it.”