Splurging the cash is not the answer to Europe’s security jitters. Let’s ignore the hyperbole and decide what’s actually needed

Britain is now on a “war footing”, we are told. Earlier this year, Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, demanded that European nations start hiking defence spending at the expense of pensions, health and social security. Fail to do so, he warned, and the only recourse would be to “get out your Russian language courses or go to New Zealand”.

In this increasingly feverish atmosphere, it becomes ever more difficult to ask for a bit of perspective, but it is necessary. European elites are panic-stricken after Donald Trump hit the accelerator away from US hegemony, a trend already long under way. Meanwhile, Labour figures openly brief that this could be Keir Starmer’s “Falklands moment”, using Ukraine’s agony to transform the government’s calamitous polling, speaking to a grubby political opportunism. Britain’s current trajectory could raise a much graver menace than Russian invasion: domestic social turmoil and an ascendant radical right that threatens democracy itself.

Plus: more tables as works of art, record numbers of away wins in league matches and 1-11 shirt numbers

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“The recent Merseyside derby showed that it’s no longer unusual for a referee to book and send off players and managers after they’ve blown the final whistle,” notes Jason Janduy. “Are there any instances where they’ve shown their cards before the match?”

Mykola Kozlenko has this one covered. “The most famous case is probably Patrice Evra, playing for Marseille against Vitória de Guimarães in the Europa League in 2017-18, when he kicked a Marseille fan before the game.”

After the final whistle the referee went into both teams’ changing-rooms and retrospectively booked every player who hadn’t already been booked, for dissent. One player was in hospital at that stage, having sustained a nasty cut to his head, but he got booked as well. Another player couldn’t go to the game at all, so found someone else to play instead of him using his name. He was booked too, despite being at a wedding at the time.

Chicken simmered in rich, tangy blend of spices and yoghurt gravy, all set off brilliantly by a side of crunchy stir-fried cabbage and nuts

This comforting meal pairs the bold, tangy flavours of a traditional north Indian chicken curry with the aromatic crunch of a Bengali cabbage stir-fry. The distinctive flavour of achari murgh comes from its rich blend of pickling spices, all simmered gently in a spiced yoghurt gravy. It’s a dish that originates from the royal kitchens of the Begum of Bhopal in the 19th century and, as such, has always been a bit of a culinary statement – both a creative experiment and a showcase of refined taste, though, despite its unusual spice profile, the method is simple and unpretentious. The moreish crunch of the cabbage side, meanwhile, lifted by crisp cashews and warming spices, balances the chicken’s tangy richness beautifully.

Former prime minister says drive to stop Channel crossings was correct, but message ‘wasn’t quite right’

Rishi Sunak has said the “stop the boats” slogan during his time as UK prime minister was “too stark”.

Sunak said the drive to stop migrants crossing the Channel was correct, but conceded the way the message was given to the public “wasn’t quite right”.

The global streaming behemoth has made music blander and life harder for artists, according to this enraging portrait

In November and December last year, Spotify’s chief executive, Daniel Ek, sold 420,000 shares in the music streaming company, earning himself $199.7m (£160m). One wild rumour that circulated on social media suggested Ek’s eagerness to divest himself of stock in the company he founded was linked to the imminent publication of Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine, as if Ek feared the revelations contained within it would adversely affect the share price. That was obviously a fanciful notion. Ek started cashing out Spotify shares in July 2023, and has continued doing so into 2025. At the time of his last transaction, a month after Pelly’s book was published in the US, Spotify’s share price was at an all-time high.

And yet, you can see how people who had a preview of Mood Machine’s contents might get that idea into their head. It may be the most depressing and enraging book about music published this year, a thoroughly convincing argument that Spotify’s success has had a disastrous effect on pop music. Pelly also alleges a catalogue of alarming corporate behaviour, indicative of a company that, one former employee suggests, has “completely lost its moral centre”.

Emiş Gürbüz’s son was murdered in Hanau by a far right terrorist. Her plea for justice five years on drew an astonishing reaction from the state

The first time I went to Hanau, I was creeped out by how ordinary it was. This mid-sized city of 100,000 people right in the geographical centre of Germany, looked and felt like many other places in western Germany I had been to: built around a bombed and reconstructed old town, expanded by a soulless mall with a multiplex cinema, surrounded by a vast industrial area and neighbourhoods separated along class lines. What the city prides itself on is that the Brothers Grimm grew up here in the late 18th century before they started publishing folk tales such as Cinderella and The Frog Prince. Since 2020, however, Hanau stands for something else: it’s the place where a far-right gunman killed nine people he assumed to be immigrants, and afterwards killed his mother and himself.

The attack on 19 February of that year not only left a deep wound within immigrant communities throughout the country, it again raised questions about how seriously the German state takes rightwing extremist terrorism, even after the infamous murders by neo-Nazi terrorist cell the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which spanned most of the decade from 2000.

Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist