CEO’s pay packet surges to £791,000 as union says public ‘sick of obscene pay’ and bosses ‘feathering own nests’ Wessex Water awarded its chief executive an above-inflation pay increase even as the company was banned from paying bonuses because of sewage spills, it has emerged. Ruth Jefferson received a 14% base salary increase in October, from £590,000 to £670,000, before other benefits, according to accounts published this month. It was far above the 3.5% given to workers, and put her pay at 18 times that of the company’s median employee. Continue reading...

Voters in Barnsley, Sunderland and Wakefield express frustration with party amid strong Reform UK challenge When millions of voters across Great Britain go to the polls on 7 May, the result will have a profound impact on the future of Keir Starmer’s government. In Wales and Scotland, nationalist parties are expected to be in charge for the first time simultaneously, joining Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland. In London and the cities, the Greens are on the charge. Continue reading...

The party seems to have woken up to its need for an old-style intellectual heavyweight to counter the vacuousness of recent years, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

Musician urges public to send clear message at what is expected to be UK’s biggest ever multicultural rally Billy Bragg has encouraged people to send a clear message to those seeking to divide the country by turning out to support what is expected to be the biggest multicultural march in UK history on Saturday. Speaking to the Guardian before the Together Alliance’s march against the far right in central London, the musician and political activist said participants hoped to “send out a message to our fellow citizens that we are willing to take a stand against [the politics of hate] being imported into the UK”. Continue reading...

The Spanish PM’s defiant foreign policy line may seem outspoken. The truth is that he is a sound strategist at home and abroad, says journalist Eoghan Gilmartin

How do you retain a space of democracy in a world that is reverting to violent conquest? By building a protective moat of federalism around it, says Paris-based Guardian writer Alexander Hurst