Exclusive: Shelter poll shows housing crisis is causing hardship even for those with jobs

Nearly two-thirds of workers living in private rented housing struggle to pay their rent, according to a poll that shows how England’s housing crisis is causing financial hardship even for those with jobs.

Only 32% of workers said they were able to keep up on their rent payments without difficulty, the poll by YouGov for Shelter shows, with 40% sometimes struggling and 23% constantly struggling.

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From golden Cornish sands to a Highland trail with beavers, our tipsters choose atmospheric walks to blow away the cobwebs

Starting with a forest climb, the ascent of Tom Gill’s tumbling waterfalls sets the scene for this breathtaking, two-hour walk to Tarn Hows in the Lake District . At the top, you plateau to a different world, crisp and pure. Ahead, the undulating path meanders around jutting peninsulas and chilly bays, past boulder-dotted banks, bare twisted larch and islands bristling with soaring, verdant conifers. Face the waters and the tarn’s cold, polished surface, the colour of the winter sky, paints the landscape in reverse, reflecting, if you’re lucky, the snow-dusted peaks of Wainwright’s fells that shoulder the view.
Kevin O’Hara

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A glorious and intimate look at the run-up to the Britpop band’s big Wembley reunion, plus Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt flex their comedic muscles in a fun stuntman flick

“The less we do, the bigger we get.” As Blur prepare for, surprisingly, their first ever gig at Wembley, drummer Dave Rowntree reflects on the Britpop band’s reunion in 2023 after 10 years apart. In this intimate documentary , cameras loiter in singer Damon Albarn’s rural Devon studio as the quartet congregate to finesse their most recent album, then follow the run-up to the big concert. They are in reflective mood, dissecting their relationships and past rock star behaviour – from Alex James’s worries about parenthood (and cheese) to the newly separated Albarn veering between workaholic intensity and sheer exhaustion. But on stage, it all comes gloriously together.
Sunday 29 December, 9pm, Sky Arts

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With approval to run trains between Swindon, Taunton and Weston-super-Mare, services could start in 2026

The idea for the country’s first cooperative rail service came to Alex Lawrie in 2004 after another frustrating trip across Somerset.

Having moved to Yeovil four years earlier with his young family, his job as a cooperative development manager involved daily trips across the south-west trying to set up member-owned businesses.

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We cooked ragu and listened to records while lying on chaises longues. Then the M11 link road was built – and everything changed

• In our end of year series, writers and public figures remember the place or time when they felt most at home

In the mid-1980s, I was in my early 20s and was reading for the Bar in London. I was living in a mouldy Balham bedsit and returning regularly to the comfort zone of my native York, when a friend told me a room was going in a shared house in Leytonstone.

I wasn’t expecting much of E11. I wasn’t expecting trees, for example, but my walk from the attractive art deco tube station took me along roads better described as avenues. The house itself seemed almost the last one in London, an illusion created by the proximity of Wanstead Flats. It was a rangy, detached 1920s house, white with a red roof, and it had a name, but I’ll just call it the villa.

Andrew Martin is an English novelist; his latest book is The Night in Venice

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Chris McCausland and Katherine Ryan are some of the comedians ready to win. Plus: the Beyond Paradise festive special. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

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Secondhand tumble dryer and roast beef for vegetarian also in ‘worst present ever received’ poll

A burial plot and a toilet seat top the list of the nation’s all-time worst Christmas gifts, according to research that suggests one in five Britons receive an unwanted present in their annual haul.

More than 2,000 members of the public were polled by Which? about what they were given at Christmas last year, with 21% saying they had received an unwanted or unsuitable gift.

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Only 2% of steel used in British offshore wind projects in past five years was UK-made, study finds

The UK steel industry has called for the government to promise to buy British as it prepares for a major expansion of offshore wind generation.

Wind generation has become a key part of the UK’s energy system , contributing 29% of generated electricity in 2023. However, despite the huge increase in the number of turbines, only 2% of the steel used in British offshore wind projects over the past five years was made in the UK, according to a study by the consultants Lumen Energy & Environment, commissioned by UK Steel, a lobby group.

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As reports of battlefield casualties emerge, Russian locals say presence of soldiers sent by Pyongyang is barely noticed

At dusk one afternoon last week, two dozen wounded North Korean soldiers were brought to one of the main hospitals in the Russian city of Kursk.

They were ushered into a specially designated floor, guarded by police, with access limited to translators and medical personnel.

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