A leftwing alliance was on track to become the biggest force in the French parliament on Sunday after tactical voting held back the far right, but the shape of the future government remained uncertain after no group looked set for an absolute majority.

The surprise result for the left – which was projected to win up to 192 seats, followed by president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and the far right in third – showed the strength of tactical voting against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). The far right and its allies had forged a commanding lead in the first round but were ultimately held back by massive tactical voting to prevent them winning enough seats to form a government.

Although the left alliance was slightly ahead, it was projected to be at least 100 seats short of an absolute majority. Amid a high turnout estimated at about 67%, no single group was predicted to win an absolute majority of 289 seats and form a government. The parliament was likely to be divided into three blocs: the left, centrists and the far right.

France now enters a period of unprecedented uncertainty over the shape of its future government and its likely prime minister. Macron has promised to remain as president, but he did not speak publicly on Sunday night, privately calling for people to be “prudent” until the final results were clear on Monday morning.

It could now take weeks to establish a government with no party gaining anywhere near an absolute majority. It was uncertain what shape of government would be leading France when the Olympic Games open Paris in less than three weeks.

The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, announced that he would hand his resignation to president Macron on Monday morning. But he also said he could stay in place for the short term, if required, while a new government was formed.

“Tonight, a new era begins,” he said, adding that France’s destiny would play out “more than ever in parliament”.

Attal said: “I know that, in the light of tonight’s results, a lot of French people feel uncertainty about the future because no majority has emerged. Our country is in an unprecedented political situation and is preparing to welcome the world [at the Olympics] in a few weeks. I will stay in my role as long as duty requires.”

Jockeying for position in the new parliament began instantly. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftwing La France Insoumise party, said: “The president must invite the New Popular Front [left alliance] to govern.” The outgoing interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “I note that today, no one can say they have won this legislative election, especially not Mr Mélenchon.”

Raphaël Glucksmann of Place Publique and the Socialist party, part of the left alliance, said: “We’re ahead, but we’re in a divided parliament … so we’re going to have to act like grownups. We’re going to have to talk, to discuss, to engage in dialogue.”

The New Popular Front alliance of parties – which includes the former ruling Socialist party, the leftwing La France Insoumise, the Greens and Communists – was predicted to take 172–192 seats, according to projections by Ipsos for the French public broadcaster. Emmanuel Macron’s centrist grouping, Ensemble, was in second place, projected to take between 150 and 170 seats, a loss of up to 100 seats but a stronger showing than expected.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) was predicted to come third with 132–152 seats, along with its allies on the right.

This was a historic result for the RN – its biggest ever score in a parliamentary election, and an increase from the 88 seats it had when parliament was dissolved last month. But it was much lower than the party had expected after it topped the vote in the first round last week.

Jordan Bardella, the RN president, said the parties who had teamed up to stop the far right were a “disgraceful alliance”. Le Pen, who intends to run for president for the far right in 2027, said the far right’s rise to power would continue. She said: “The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and our victory has simply been deferred.”

The RN’s limited score showed the success of a tactical voting pact formed last week by centrists and the left to hold back the far right.

More than 200 candidates from the left and centre had pulled out of the second round last week in order to avoid splitting the vote against the RN. Those parties had called on voters to choose any candidate against the RN, in an attempt to prevent the far right winning an absolute majority of 289 and forming a government.

The party, which was founded as the Front National by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, was presented by the left and centrists as a danger to democracy that promoted racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views. Brice Tinturier, director general of Ipsos, said the results showed that a majority of French voters still saw the RN as dangerous.

Clémence Guetté, who was re-elected for the leftwing La France Insoumise, said the lower-than-expected score for the RN showed that “this is not a racist country and France does not want to be divided”.

Macron shocked his own government and party by calling snap elections on 9 June after his centrists were trounced by the far right in European elections.

Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix with a mighty and historic drive in immensely tricky wet and dry conditions at Silverstone to end finally his two-and-a-half-year win drought. The Mercedes driver beat the Red Bull of Max Verstappen into second and the McLaren of Lando Norris into third in a gripping and thrilling encounter. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was fourth and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in fifth.

In a remarkable race, Hamilton delivered a superb performance as he and Mercedes gave a masterclass of driving and tactics. What it meant to the 39-year-old was clear as he was reduced to tears in the cockpit on his in-lap. “Get in there Lewis, you the man, you the man,” his engineer Peter Bonnington yelled over the team radio. “I love you, Bono,” replied Hamilton as the home crowd erupted in celebrating a win many might have thought they might not see again.

The victory finally ends the longest winless streak of Hamilton’s career, stretching back 56 races to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in December 2021, lasting more than two years across 945 days. The win is the 104th of Hamilton’s career in his 344th grand prix, with the 39-year-old becoming the first driver to claim a victory after passing the 300th-race milestone.

The win at Silverstone is also another record as he becomes the first driver to achieve nine victories at a meeting, an extraordinary achievement.

In a race that was all but impossible to call, defined by periods of rain and the strategy calls they entailed, Hamilton, always a master in the wet, and Mercedes, with no little experience in guiding their man to wins, executed with aplomb.

Starting in the dry, despite the threat of rain, George Russell, who ultimately retired with a water system problem, held his lead from Hamilton but Verstappen made up a place on Norris, passing round the outside through the Loop to take third.

During the first bout of rain McLaren took advantage, with Norris taking the lead, but it was the second spell of wet weather that was crucial. After stopping for wet rubber, Norris held his lead from Hamilton and Verstappen but as the track then dried the crossover back to slick rubber proved vital.

Hamilton was stopped to take the soft slicks on lap 38, as did Verstappen for hard rubber, but Norris stayed out. He went into the pits a lap later but the 4.5-second stop was slow and Hamilton had been rapid on his out-lap, sweeping into the lead as Norris emerged.

The Mercedes call had been spot on as Hamilton had a full two-second advantage over that one lap. The crowd were roaring his every circuit with 11 remaining, Norris looking to chase him down and Verstappen similarly edging up on Norris.

It was a tense showdown to the flag, Verstappen’s hard tyre was perfect for the circumstances as the Red Bull found real pace in the dry and he caught Norris on lap 48 and made the pass with ease at Stowe to take second.

Hamilton’s lead was three seconds with four laps to go and, while Verstappen went hard, the British driver executed with all the clinical control and experience that has returned him seven titles, to maintain his lead and take an unforgettable win.

After 12 rounds Verstappen now leads the drivers’ championship by 84 points from Norris.

Nico Hülkenberg was sixth for Haas, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso in seventh and eighth for Aston Martin, Alex Albon ninth for Williams and Yuki Tsunoda 10th for RB.

Judy Murray said she was being sarcastic when she suggested that Emma Raducanu’s withdrawal from the mixed doubles with Andy Murray was “astonishing”, saying their late scheduling would have played a part.

Raducanu announced her withdrawal on Saturday, saying she had felt some soreness in her right wrist. Having had surgery on both wrists last year – and with her fourth-round singles match on Sunday to prepare for – she decided it was safer to pull out.

Judy Murray had responded to a post from broadcaster Marcus Buckland, saying: “Yes, astonishing.” Her post caused a furore on social media, with some saying that Raducanu had ruined her son’s Wimbledon farewell.

However, on Sunday, Murray suggested she’d been misunderstood. “Not sure anyone understands sarcasm these days,” she wrote on X. “Pretty sure the scheduling (4th match court 1 with a singles following day) will have played a major part in any decision making.”

Eyebrows had been raised when Raducanu and Andy Murray were placed last on Saturday’s schedule. Initially, it had been anticipated they would be the first match, at 1pm, also to avoid any potential clash with England’s Euro 2024 quarter-final against Switzerland.

Then, with a poor weather forecast and with one of their opponents, Marcelo Arévalo, also having a men’s doubles match to complete because of the rain, they were put fourth match on instead. As it turned out, Arévalo did not even get on court for the completion of his men’s doubles until 1pm.

If Andy Murray needs someone to chat to about it all, then perhaps he could seek out John McEnroe. The former world No 1 came out of retirement in 1999 to partner Steffi Graf in the mixed at Wimbledon that year and the pair thrilled the crowds.

McEnroe and Graf beat Venus Willams and Justin Gimelstob on their way to the semi-finals and looked for all the world as if they would win the title, only for Graf to tell him that she was pulling out to save herself for the final of the singles the next day. “It’s too much, and it’s too late in the day – I’m defaulting”, McEnroe recalled, in his book, Serious. McEnroe was furious and still rues the missed opportunity. Graf then lost the final to Lindsay Davenport in straight sets.

Murray pulled out of the singles because of injury but was treated to a touching farewell on Centre Court, including a video tribute from Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams following his doubles defeat with brother Jamie Murray on Thursday.

The bright blue skies and calm waters of the estuary belie rough conditions at sea, and there is no sign of activity among the colourful fishing boats moored around the harbour of Cananéia, a sleepy fishing town 160 miles south of São Paulo.

On the wharf, however, a delivery of frozen fish from Uruguay has just arrived and a few men in white gumboots are busy unloading pallets of beheaded specimens labelled Galeorhinus galeus – school shark.

These thin grey fish will be kept in a cold store on shelves already stacked ceiling-high with carcasses of blue sharks, all awaiting processing and distribution to cities inland.

“Why do we work with shark?” says Helgo Muller, 53, the company manager. “Because people like it; it’s good and cheap protein. It doesn’t give you crazy profits, but it’s decent enough.”

Shark is just a small fraction of the firm’s business but they process about 10 tonnes a month, he says, mostly blue shark imported from countries including Costa Rica, Uruguay, China and Spain.

Communities up and down Brazil’s 4,600-mile (7,400km) coastline have always eaten sharks. “It is part of our tradition,” says Lucas Gabriel Jesus Silva, a 27-year-old whose grandfather moved to the area in the 1960s to fish sharks for their fins.

However, the widespread appetite for shark meat that Muller’s company helps feed is now troubling scientists and environmentalists, who worry about unsustainable pressure on various species.

Demand has made Brazil the top importer and one of the biggest consumers of shark meat in a global market worth an estimated $2.6bn (£2bn).

“Sharks are very vulnerable to overexploitation as they don’t reproduce as often or with as many offspring as bony fishes do,” explains Prof Aaron MacNeil, of Canada’s Dalhousie University.

Research published in April found that 83% of the shark and ray species sold in Brazil were threatened, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classification.

For years, conservation efforts focused on the fin trade with Asia and the barbaric practice of “finning” – removing a shark’s fins and returning the wounded and helpless animal, often still alive, to the sea. But research from earlier this year suggests restrictions on finning have not reduced shark mortality, with at least 80 million sharks still being killed annually.

“Meat was kind of left by the wayside,” says MacNeil, who is researching the global shark meat trade. “It’s only now we’re realising how big the trade is. Its value has certainly exceeded that of fins.” The pressure on sharks for food has risen in parallel with a decline in catches of other fish, he says.

Traditionally, Brazilians ate shark in moqueca, a seafood stew from the states of Bahia and Espírito Santo. And many of Cananéia’s residents recall how their older relatives would use shark’s head broth and cartilage as homemade remedies.

But now, sold in fillets or steaks, shark has been absorbed into Brazilians’ diet as it is cheaper than other white fish, boneless and easy to cook. It now appears in school and hospital canteens.

The fact that few Brazilians realise they are eating shark has probably helped make it ubiquitous. While coastal people with a shark-eating tradition recognise the subtle differences in texture and flavour between shark species, to most Brazilians it is just cação – a generic term under which both shark and ray meat are sold.

“Brazilians are very poorly informed – they don’t know that cação is shark, and even when they do they often aren’t aware that these animals are at risk of extinction,” says Nathalie Gil, president of Sea Shepherd Brasil, a marine conservation organisation.

In Cananéia, locals joke: “It’s cação when you eat it, and shark [tubarão] when it eats you.” But campaigners say the generic labelling prevents informed decisions by consumers, and this could even affect their health due to high concentrations of dangerous pollutants in these top predators.

“If they knew, they might not eat it,” says Ana Barbosa Martins, a researcher at Dalhousie University.

Brazilian law does not allow fishing for any sharks, but they can be landed as bycatch with few restrictions. The country’s tuna fleet often lands larger amounts of shark than tuna. “Theoretically, it’s all within the realms of the law. But it’s a form of fishing that’s completely unregulated,” says Martins.

The capture and sale of protected species is banned. If caught they must be returned to the sea, even if dead – which is usually the case, fishers say.

That rule is hard to enforce. Silva, the fisher from Cananéia, recalls how sand tiger sharks (known locally as mangona) were landed with impunity long after they became one of the first species to be listed as endangered in 2004. “Mangona was easily sold at the distribution centre. It was only in 2017, I think, the guys got fined and then it stopped,” says Silva. He claims fishers were unaware that it was protected.

Misidentification, whether accidental or deliberate, is frequent in domestic landings and imports. Santos identified a specimen in the Uruguayan shipment seen by the Guardian as a narrownose smoothhound shark, rather than the school shark listed on the label (both species are considered critically endangered in Brazil, but their import is permitted).

Martins believes effective monitoring depends on authorities better communicating and collaborating with fishing communities, who often resent restrictions that they consider unreasonable. This was evident in the views of local fishers along the São Paulo coast.

“Fishers don’t cast their nets to catch shark specifically, but sometimes a [protected] hammerhead comes up. What can you do?” says Lucia Rissato,who runs a fish stall in Peruíbe, a seaside town about 75 miles north of Cananéia.

Silva echoes a widely held view in his community. “A fisher’s got to do his job,” he says. “Prohibition comes with good intentions, but it doesn’t stop [sharks] from getting caught in nets that are set for Atlantic croaker, for hake.” He started going to sea aged 12 and believes shark populations have not declined “as much as people say”, another widely held opinion in Cananéia.

Last year, the government added five new species to its endangered list, including the shortfin mako, which is popular with consumers. Rissato complains that she can no longer sell any locally captured shark as it is not clear what is permitted.

“We have to sell it in secret, like drugs,” says the 48-year-old, who that day had a haul of Brazilian sharpnose shark in her fridge – a permitted species, but which she showed as furtively as if they were contraband.

Sixty-five year-old Ana Alinda Alves sorts fish at the wharf in Cananéia and has five sons who fish. “The authorities treat fishers like gangsters,” she sighs. “The fisher goes to sea, he gets a cação and he can’t even bring it home to feed his family. He didn’t steal anything. He went fishing, he went to work.”

Amid global efforts to improve protection of sharks, Brazil is taking action. A bill presented to congress last year would require cação to be labelled as shark (or ray) at every stage of the production chain, as well as identifying the species. Another bill proposes banning buying shark in public tenders. And for the first time, the government has introduced quotas for blue shark caught by Brazil’s tuna longliners.

But these provisions can only go so far, especially as they do not affect imports. Conservationists such as Gil argue that public opinion on these ecologically vital animals needs to change.

“Would they take a whale that got caught in the net and serve it to their family? No, because it’s illegal, but also because there is a respect for whales,” she says.

In the past week, since Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) stormed into its daunting lead in the first round of the French parliamentary elections, a menacing graffito has appeared in my neighbourhood in Paris, on a busy street corner between the boulangerie and the wine shop. Written in black, in a clear and steady hand, it reads “Les nerfs sont tendus, les Fachos seront pendus” – “Nerves are being stretched, the fascists will be hung”.

As France has advanced towards the runoff second round of the elections, life has been quietly humming along in the quartier – Euro football matches in the cafes, shopping and commuting have all been as normal. But the graffito has always been there, an ominous backdrop to everyday life, a sinister threat and a warning about the tensions in France right now.

Emmanuel Macron has not been shy about using the term “civil war” to describe the situation, and commentators have been unsure whether he means it as a metaphor or something that might happen. On Thursday, 30,000 extra police were deployed across the country in anticipation of civil disorder in the wake of the elections. There has also been much talk in the media of what comes after the election. The consensus seems to be chaos. The philosopher Michel Onfray, not the typical supporter of the far-right RN – although a longtime advocate of “Frexit” – says that what is happening is the death of European liberalism and sees political violence as almost inevitable.

At the Métro station on rue Pernety, Gabrielle, a 22-year-old marketing student, has been handing out flyers for Céline Hervieu, the local Socialist candidate for the New Popular Front (NFP) – the opposition coalition to the RN – all afternoon. She is footsore and weary, having had the same conversation all day with voters. “It’s always the same,” she says. “Emmanuel Macron has inflicted a deep wound on our democracy. Everyone repeats that he is a cynic who cares only about himself and not the people. I agree.” This was an unusually jaded opinion from someone who was effectively canvassing to keep Macron in power.

The RN has not been a visible presence in the area, and would very quickly be made unwelcome in this multi-ethnic district. Yet, sitting at a cafe terrace you silently wonder who has voted for whom. People will, however, quietly reveal their affiliations. Arturo (not his real name) is in his seventies, of Portuguese origin, and has lived in this neighbourhood all his life. He is voting RN for the first time. “It is the only party that has the interests of the people in its heart,” he said to me over a pastis in the Café Métro. “People think the RN are divisive but really they just want to establish some order, and that’s in the interests of everyone, black, Arab, or whatever. France has been falling apart for a long time and Macron or the left just don’t see or just don’t care.”

The current standoff is not simply between two opposing sides, left and right. Alain Finkelkraut, another philosopher, has talked recently about the “Lebanonisation” of France, a society disintegrating into fragments, into warring factions with no common interest. What Finkelkraut fears is a splintered state and the crumbling away of “la République indivisible” – the first pillar of the French constitution.

The urban geographer Christophe Guilluy has been observing this process close up for many years and explains it as the result of changes in the deepest structures of French society – the “desertification” of large swathes of provincial France and the domination of self-interested metropolitan elites. He explained to me that, until recently, France had always been like a family, divided between right and left, who might hate each other but everyone knew their place. This had fragmented and French people no longer stood by traditional class identities. He has not been in any way surprised by the RN’s great leap forward in 2024. “It’s an unstoppable movement,” he said, “a movement of ordinary people who want their voice heard.”

Certainly, the extremes are dangerously far apart. This much was demonstrated in the past week with the vying viral popularity of two music anthems from the right and the left. The song Je partira pas (“I ain’t going” in bad French) has now been banned from TikTok but it is still a massive hit with the rightwing gen Z youth. It begins with the voice of an immigrant being deported before crashing into a bouncing Euro-pop refrain with the catchy chorus “Si, si tu partiras” (“oh yes, you’re going” in correct French), taunting the deported immigrant to pack his djellaba and go home.

The anti-RN rap opposition is not heartening. No pasarán, concocted by DJ Kore and a rap collective, takes aim at the RN but is loaded with misogyny, death threats, conspiracy theories, Islamism and antisemitism. As such, it may well be an accurate reflection of political nihilism in the banlieues but is hardly a rallying cry. Rather, it affirms every easy prejudice that RN supporters and others have about the culture of the suburbs. The track is, however, the sound of “nerves being stretched”, as the graffito says.

France has not been so politically fraught for decades. Whatever happens today, whether or not the RN gains the full majority it craves, France has reached a historical moment from which it cannot easily step back.

Andrew Hussey is the author of The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and its Arabs

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“This film contains extremely dangerous and illegal activities. Do not attempt to imitate.” Those words flash up on the screen at the start of Skywalkers: A Love Story, the most vertigo-inducing documentary you will see this year.

It tells the story of two Russian “rooftoppers”, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, who find fame by scrambling to the top of the world’s tallest buildings and posing there, without harnesses or safety nets, taking photographs and films to post on social media to incite wonder and admiration. On their way up a construction crane on the tower of Goldin Finance 117 in Tianjin, China, they begin to fall in love.

The film, artfully shaped by director Jeff Zimbalist, himself a former rooftopper, culminates in their attempt to climb the Merdeka skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, all 118 storeys of it, its metal spire reaching 2,227 feet into the sky. It is the world’s second tallest building and when Nikolau and Beerkus broke through its security on the night of the World Cup Final in December 2022, it seemed a fitting challenge for their sky-scraping skills.

The climb, at first inside the building’s semi-finished interior and then perilously up the fragile spire at the summit, has all the tension of a thriller. But it is also deliberately presented as a chapter in their relationship, a symbol of the need for trust between two people as they struggle to balance on a thin girder so he can lift her horizontally in the air, floating gracefully in a shimmering red dress.

Drones and selfie sticks record this astonishing image, and their unbelievable bravery. Sitting on a sofa in Netflix’s office in New York and recalling the feat, Beerkus preserves a sense of wonder. “Usually when I go on the roofs I feel adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment that I have conquered something,” he says. He is talking in rapid Russian with the film’s co-director, Maria Bukhonina, as translator. “But it was different with Merdeka because by the time we made it to the top, I knew we would achieve our goal. I was experiencing a strange calmness and quietness. I was so focused.”

Nikolau recalls the sensation of his hand on her stomach, holding her aloft. “It is kind of like riding a horse,” she says, making him laugh. “You connect into one, you have this unity. I could hear only my own breath, not the traffic below or the wind. It was a moment of complete harmony.”

The question My problems are my lack of success in my own life. I’m a 35-year-old man and I’ve been with my partner for 12 years. I fell into waiting tables after school and stayed there and now find myself on a low wage in a directionless job. A couple of years ago, I had an affair. My partner and I separated for a while, but are now back together.

I have real feelings of failure and resentment about my partner’s successful career. I have a “what the hell” approach to life, maybe because I got what seemed like a large inheritance, which meant we could buy a house, but now I have got myself into terrible debt. My partner is unaware I am unable to cover my outgoings and I find myself slipping further and further into debt, relying on credit cards to cover monthly repayments. I am on a constant search for new work with a higher salary, but I’m failing on all accounts. My problems can only get worse with my partner recently becoming pregnant.

I have a chequered job history and fear recruiters see me as a risk and are unwilling to interview me or entertain my applications. Despite being in the hospitality sector my entire life, it doesn’t add up to solid experience. With our lives about to change, my descent into debt and career stagnation makes me hate myself. I don’t know where to turn.

Philippa’s answer Where you can turn is towards yourself and towards others. You have more resources than you think. We all make mistakes; this doesn’t mean we are our mistakes. If you hate yourself, you won’t know your worth and won’t act as though you have worth. This sounds like it could be depression. You can get this under control by seeing your GP, who will either get you some counselling, or antidepressants, or both.

You have been reckless, with money and with your relationship, but this doesn’t mean you have to continue to be so. Come clean with your partner about how you are getting deeper into debt by borrowing more every month to pay off loans. Work out together how to pay this back, maybe by consolidating it on to your mortgage. Together, make a financial plan and stick to it. This will be a great relief. Don’t continue making the situation worse by keeping it a secret. You and your partner are a team: work as a team.

I think your work situation could be improved if, again, you could see yourself more as a team player. Make yourself indispensable, motivate yourself and the people you work with to function as a team. When you switch from seeing yourself as alone to instead seeing yourself as part of something bigger, you’ll feel better because you’ll belong rather than being an uncommitted outsider. You may not be in the job you want to be in for the rest of your life, but while you are in it, throw yourself into it; be the best waiter you can be. A lot of people are great people and happen to be waiters. In France that’s seen as a profession rather than a job. Be more French – take pride in what you do. Such a switch in attitude will help you regain your dignity. You do a job, but you are not your job. Feel good about yourself because of the way you go about doing that job.

There may be some outdated stereotypes of what a man is supposed to be that are polluting your psyche, such as always being strong, in control, able to manage without help and being the main provider. Reading The Descent of Man by my husband, Grayson Perry, will help you shed some unhelpful cultural expectations of what a man is “supposed” to be. When you are more aware of these, it will be easier to see your partner and yourself as more of a cooperative team, rather than regarding her as someone to unfavourably compare yourself to.

You could perhaps take on the role of house-husband if she wants to return to work after the baby. Investing your energies into your child is never an investment you’ll regret. You’ll be indispensable, not because you are changing nappies, but because you will have such a precious relationship with your child, which will help them become the person they can be – and they can help you mature, too. A great thing about having a baby is that you get to grow up again because you’ll see the world through their eyes – they’ll teach you about what they see, feel and experience, giving you a chance to experience the world anew. I’m not saying it won’t be hard or feel long at times, but stand back and look at the bigger picture.

I notice a pattern of recklessness in your tale… the spending, the affair. Next time you are tempted by the thought of a short-term thrill, keep the fantasy going past the orgasm or metaphorical orgasm. You know how it feels when such behaviour comes to roost: it feels horrible, it makes you hate yourself. Best cure, don’t do it, talk about it instead. Remember, whether at work or at home, be part of a team.

Every week Philippa Perry addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Philippa, please send your problem to [email protected]. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions

For a couple of minutes after the exit poll on Thursday night, nobody said a thing. About a dozen of Keir Starmer’s closest and longest-serving aides assembled at the back of the living room, turned and hugged each other. Some sobbed as aching exhaustion mixed with relief and joy.

Even more powerful feelings were on display in front of them. Starmer and his wife, Vic, along with their two teenage children, were lined up on the sofa watching the television almost like they were recreating the opening of the cartoon series The Simpsons. They tried to show they were relaxed in this upmarket house Starmer had borrowed from a friend. Their son wore his Arsenal shirt and their daughter, who has told him she has no intention of moving to Downing Street, gave everyone an excuse to laugh for a moment by letting out a long “Ewww” when her dad’s face appeared on the screen.

At 9.59pm, the countdown began. Starmer and his wife locked their bodies together. Vic’s left arm stretched around his shoulders to clasp his left hand, while he did the same to reach for her right. “As Big Ben strikes 10, the exit poll is predicting a Labour landslide,” intoned the BBC. “Keir Starmer will become prime minister with a majority of around 170 seats.”

The man they were talking about wrapped both his arms around his wife to share an extravagant kiss. Then he reached out for his 13-year-old daughter. They embraced for a moment but he jolted into a tighter, protective grip as he realised it was all becoming too much. I looked away and stared at the TV as it chattered on. The room suddenly felt hot and, not for the first time since I began writing Starmer’s biography two years ago, I knew this was intruding on something very personal.

There are dozens of interviews and profiles where he has described “sleepless nights” worrying about the impact becoming prime minister will have on his children. Maybe it’s just the sort of thing you might expect a politician to say. But even the hardest cynic would soften if they could have watched him on the sofa with his family as they got the news their lives were about to change for ever.

I found myself wondering once again why this self-contained and rather private man would choose to put himself through all this. It’s not like the job he has fought so hard to get is one guaranteed to bring much happiness. There’s a terrible economic inheritance waiting for him, along with crumbling public services and darkening international skies, while even sympathetic commentators predict he will be deeply unpopular within a year.

Nor is he one of those who declared as a child he wanted to be “world king” or pretended he was standing outside Downing Street while he practised a speech in front of a mirror as a teenager. Instead, he is someone who came into politics late, who eschews the idea of “Starmerism” – or any other “ism” – and insists all he wants is to “get stuff done”.

Back in the room on Thursday night, it fell to Matthew Doyle, his communications chief, to break the silence by saying: “Well, we won.” The mood lightened. Starmer went around for a few minutes, sharing embraces and muttered words.

Some of those present headed to the buffet table to try the food and cheese laid out for them but which they hadn’t really felt like eating before. Nobody was drinking alcohol. Vic was talking on the phone. “Dad,” she said, “just put the telly on. They’ve done the exit poll …. No! I’m not joking! It’s out already … yes, we’ve won!”

Then the internet went down. There was no wifi, no TV and the prime minister-elect was cut off from the outside world. “That’s a bit frustrating,” he said with characteristic understatement.

When he went upstairs to see if could get a signal. Sue Gray, the chief-of-staff recruited last year from the civil service, shouted up to him that security would take his phone off him when he got to No 10.

“No, they won’t!” came the reply from the top of the stairs (and when I checked on Saturday lunchtime, the prime minister still had it).

Below stairs, his team were cracking jokes about their communications breakdown. “It’s quite peaceful like this,” said one. “Maybe we could just stay down here, then come out in four years’ time to see how it all went,” remarked another.

But no one was stopping there for long. Gray wanted to get to south London where votes that would make her son a Labour MP were being counted. Others prepared to head to Starmer’s own count in Camden. Still more were anxious to do some work at the party’s HQ. Starmer had a couple of hours before he had to leave. “Are you going to grab some sleep?” I asked him as I left.

“No,” he said, tilting his head and smiling in acknowledgment that he probably should. “No, I won’t.”

The quiet intensity of his celebrations on Thursday night were a contrast to the exuberance of the last day of campaigning. On Wednesday, he used “planes, trains and automobiles” to travel across the three nations of Wales, Scotland and England. His speaking style, often criticised as wooden, has improved and he can lift crowds with an urgency and passion that’s not always been apparent.

Even so, away from the cameras, my abiding image of the Labour leader was of him sitting quietly alone at the front of the plane in deep contemplation, a hand covering one side of his face so he could ignore the air stewardesses who kept sneaking a look at him from round the corner. Advisers said he had become more like this in the final days as he began making the mental transition from opposition to government.

There was a similar poignancy at the end of a six-week tour that had, according to a helpful briefing note, covered 8,204 miles, “which equates to 38,000 laps of the pitch at Wembley”. On the last journey back to London, Starmer walked down the train carriage, quietly thanking each member of this close-knit team, including his police protection officers, for what they had done. Once again, sitting there listening in, it felt like I was intruding on a private moment for another kind of family.

Indeed, in the last two days of the election campaign, the parents of team members began turning up at his rallies. On Tuesday in Cannock Chase, he heard that Leeann, the mother of his private secretary, Prentice Hazell, was in the audience, so he sought her out afterwards for a chat. On Wednesday in Carmarthen, it was the turn of Suzy and Guy Pullen to meet the future prime minister. Their son, Tom, who has been Starmer’s official photographer for the past four years, said afterwards: “You ask your parents to come to something if you’re proud of what you’re doing. I guess they turn up if they’re proud of it too.”

Later that day, the mother of Jill Cuthbertson, the Labour leader’s office director, was at the Caledonia Gladiators basketball court to see him deliver his final campaign speech in Scotland. Typically, she had brought a clean dress for her daughter because she thought “Jill might need it in the next day or two”.

The younger Cuthbertson has emerged as a formidable figure after a campaign where she has been widely credited with avoiding any of the mistakes that seemed to befall Rishi Sunak on an almost daily basis. A sense of this organisation involved could be found in the “op-note” prepared each day, which sets out, minute-by-minute, operational logistics. The one for Wednesday ran to 15 pages.

Another indication of Labour’s nothing-left-to-chance attitude were the babies waiting at the basketball court at the end of his rally that day. Some Labour supporters there wanted to get a picture of Starmer with their newborn children, not least because politicians kissing them is a well-worn campaign tradition. But party aides decided it was too high-risk to be done in front of media, so only when the press had been cleared from the room did the Labour leader wander over to meet them.

As soon as he picked up one of them, a baby girl, there were familiar gurgling noises and she began to be sick on him. “Ah, what are you doing here?” said Starmer, smiling. “I might need to give you back to your mum.” Some wet wipes were produced to clean his shirt as Anas Sarwar, Labour’s ebullient Scottish leader, said: “When she grows up, she’ll be able to say she puked on a prime minister.”

There was no “puking”, at least not alcohol-induced, at the Tate Modern gallery, where Labour held its victory party in the small hours of Friday. Guests were presented with a single pink ticket declaring “one drink”. The woman at the door, said: “It was going to be five but that’s all you’re getting. A decision was taken from on high.”

Starmer himself delivered a similarly sober message when he spoke at 5am to the party. Although he talked of “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day, shining once again”, the rain that had fallen heavily on London from Friday was not far away. He talked of the need for “hard work, patient work, determined work”, when the going gets tough, adding: “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age.”

When he arrived at Downing Street on Friday lunchtime, his convoy delayed until a break in the weather because aides wanted to avoid any repetition of Sunak’s soaking at the start of the election, Starmer promised a “government unburdened by doctrine”, which would “restore service and respect to politics, end the era of noisy performance, tread more lightly on your lives and unite our country”.

Such language reflects his unease at an election result that, though delivering a vast majority for Labour, has suggested new fissures opening up in Britain. Not only has the far-right Reform party been given a foothold in parliament for the first time, but the success of independent pro-Palestine candidates and the Greens suggest a changing battlefield on which the Labour government will have to face attacks across several fronts in the years to come.

His campaign team, led by Morgan McSweeney, is already studying the difficulties faced by other centre and centre-left leaders in the face of the populist right. These include the Joe Biden US administration’s early decision to reverse most Trump-era policies on immigration. They believe Olaf Scholz’s government in Germany opened up territory for the far right to attack “eco-dictatorship” with some of its net zero policies, and in Britain such measures should instead be presented as building “energy security”.

Papers with unedifying titles such as “The Death of Deliverism” have been circulated, suggesting big investment projects will do little to stop populists “surfing a wave of unhappiness” unless the everyday crisis in living standards and issues such as potholes or sewage-infested rivers are not addressed swiftly.

There are hints, too, that even with his vast parliamentary majority, Starmer may have to consider a closer working or even electoral relationship with other centrist parties such as the Liberal Democrats if he is to build a stable coalition from a volatile electorate.

The problems are mounting up already at home and abroad. He must also come to terms with the personal upheaval of moving his family into the goldfish bowl of Downing Street, where it may be impossible to protect his children’s privacy.

But perhaps he can learn from them. When his son recently finished his GCSEs, he immediately put all his revision notes, books and school uniform into a box for chucking out. The prime minister tells this story with the kind of laugh in his voice that sounds like pride.

Like his son, he knows he will need to dispose of what’s no longer needed without too much sentiment if they are to meet the next challenge to come.

It turns out the Starmers are good at that sort of thing.

The ideal understudy is talented but inconspicuous, prepared at all times to step into the top role and yet content to never do so.

In New Orleans, at the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture, gone was the Kamala Harris of the drab brown, chair-matching suit and the halting, technical commentary about American policy needs. That was the Harris who spoke here in 2019, then a Democratic presidential primary contender trailed by fewer than 10 reporters.

Instead, on Saturday, Harris – dressed in a bright teal suit and tailed by a press contingent which had expanded to more than four times its previous size – spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in a room equipped to seat more than 500 people.

In what was billed as an on-stage conversation with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga, Harris confidently offered a blend of standard campaign-season talk – a recitation of the Biden-Harris administration’s major policy accomplishments with dire warnings about the dangers posed by a possible second Trump term and the critical importance of the choice that voters will face in just 122 days – blended with the language of women’s empowerment.

To say that Harris assiduously avoided any mention of recent questions about Biden’s fitness for office would be an overstatement, and Wanga did not ask or seemingly make room for the issue gripping much of Washington. In the past week, the fallout of the president’s shaky debate performance on 27 June has manifested in calls for him to drop out of the race, with a handful of Democratic lawmakers joining the chorus. Many of those same critics are now hoping Harris might be the new nominee in November.

For those inclined to read tea leaves, there may well have been more there in New Orleans. Harris encouraged the audience to embrace ambition and the difficulty of cutting new, and even history-making, paths.

“I beseech you, don’t you ever hear something can’t be done,’ Harris said. “People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before. Don’t you ever listen to that.

“I like to say, ‘I eat no for breakfast,’” she said.

Harris had been introduced as a woman “doing the heavy lifting”, “smart”, “tough”, and a “proven fighter for the backbone of this country”. Then she entered and exited to the sound of a Beyoncé-Kendrick Lamar collaboration, Freedom, at the point where Beyonce sings, “Singin’, freedom, freedom, Where are you? … Hey! I’ma keep running.”

While Biden has insisted he will remain in the race amid what he has described as a subset of Washington insiders and op-ed writers insisting he should step aside, Harris’s poll numbers have improved and her public speeches and commentary – once a much maligned element of her time on the national political stage – have become more assertive and assured.

Harris has spent recent months crisscrossing the country speaking about threats to reproductive rights, maternal mortality, economic opportunity and inclusion. And in New Orleans, Harris described the election as more important than “any in your lifetime”, adding that democracy may not survive a second Trump term. Trump, she said, was a convicted felon whom the supreme court had just granted immunity from prosecution.

Harris also spoke about an array of the administration’s efforts to resolve the problems that vex the lives of Americans, including many in the room: a cap on the price of insulin paid by those enrolled in Medicare; expanded access to public health insurance for low- to moderate-income women after giving birth, the period in which many fatal complications arise; and billions in student loan debt forgiven. When Harris called for those who had seen some of their student debt forgiven, hundreds of hands went up in the room.

“You got that because you voted in 2020,” Harris told the audience.

And, she said, there was work that remained such as reducing the cost of childcare for all Americans to no more than 7% of household income, and work on the cusp of being done. This included the administration’s efforts to remove medical debt from the calculus that generated credit scores and made it hard for some Americans to rent an apartment or purchase a car.

Leshelle Henderson, a nurse practitioner from Cleveland providing family medicine and psychiatric care, said she was trying to serve her community and a country in the midst of a mental health crisis. And she was working double time to pay off hundreds of thousands in student loans, none of which had been forgiven. She came to Essence Fest for fun but wanted to hear the vice-president speak about student loan forgiveness and what a second Biden-Harris administration would do for the economic fortunes of Black men and women.

That was before the event.

“I liked what I heard,” Henderson said. “I did, but want to hear more. Honestly, I think what we heard tonight is the next president of the United States. Isn’t that something?”

A long-running heatwave that has already broken records, sparked dozens of wildfires and left about 130 million people under a high-temperature threat is about to intensify enough that the National Weather Service has deemed it “potentially historic”.

The NWS on Saturday reported some type of extreme heat or advisory for nearly 133 million people across the nation – mostly in western states where the triple-digit heat, with temperatures 15F to 30F higher than average, is expected to last into next week.

Oppressive heat and humidity could team up to spike temperatures above 100F (about 38C) in parts of the Pacific north-west, the mid-Atlantic and the north-east, said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist with the NWS.

Records were broken in at least four Oregon cities on Friday, the NWS reported. Medford, which had a high temperature of 102F set in 1926, saw temperatures soar to 109F. The biggest leap, however, was in North Bend, whose record of 74F set in 1913 was busted by a spike of 11 degrees when it hit 85F on Friday.

“Certainly a pretty anomalous event that we’re expecting here, which looks like it will continue through at least midweek,” Asherman said.

At the Waterfront blues festival in Portland, Oregon, music fans dealt with heat on Friday by drinking cold water, seeking refuge in the shade or freshening up under water misters.

Angela Quiroz, 31, kept her scarf and hat wet and applied sunscreen to protect herself from the heat at the music festival.

“Definitely a difference between the shade and the sun,” Quiroz said. “But when you’re in the sun, it feels like you’re cooking.”

In sweltering Las Vegas, where the temperature had hit 100F (37.7C) by 10.30am, Marko Boscovich said the best way to beat the heat was in a seat at a slot machine with a cold beer inside an air-conditioned casino.

“But you know, after it hits triple digits, it’s about all the same to me,” said Boscovich, who was visiting from Sparks, Nevada, to see a Dead & Company concert later Saturday night at the Sphere. “Maybe they’ll play one of my favorites: Cold Rain and Snow.”

By midday Saturday, Las Vegas ended up tying its daily heat record of 115F, the NWS said, as it pleaded with people to be mindful of leaving children or pets inside vehicles in the extreme heat.

On Friday, a new heat record for the day was set in California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth. The previous high was shattered by 5F, with the mercury climbing to 127F (53C). The old mark of 122F was last tied in 2013.

More extreme highs are in the near forecast, including 129F for Sunday at Furnace Creek in Death Valley national park, and then around 130F through Wednesday. The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134F (57C) in Death Valley in July 1913, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130F recorded there in July 2021.

Rare heat advisories were extended even in upper elevations, including around Lake Tahoe, with the National Weather Service in Reno warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains”.

“How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures across [western Nevada and north-eastern California] won’t get below 100 degrees [37.8C] until next weekend,” the service posted online. “And unfortunately, there won’t be much relief overnight either.”

There was also a record high for the date of 118F in Phoenix, where highs of 115F or hotter were forecast through Wednesday. In Needles, California, where the NWS has records dating to 1888, the high of 122F edged the old mark of 121F set in 2007. It was 124F in Palm Springs, California.

The intense heat – combined with winds and low humidity – means the potential for wildfires to spread is high.

Red-flag warnings are in effect across much of California until Saturday evening, said the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire. Officials urged people to stay vigilant and take extra precautions such as avoiding activities that can spark fires and following evacuation orders.

California has more than two dozen wildfires burning across the state, with the two largest, in the central part of the state, burning more than 24,000 acres combined. The Thompson fire, in northern California’s Butte county, has devoured at least 3,700 acres since it was reported on 2 July.

By Saturday, the blaze had forced thousands to evacuate and injured two firefighters. It was 71% contained. Cal Fire reported that 26 structures had been destroyed by the blaze.

The French fire, which erupted on 4 July near Yosemite national park and quickly grew to more than 900 acres (364 hectares), has held steady after more than 1,000 personnel worked overnight to get it to 25% containment, according to Cal Fire.

The eastern US also was bracing for more hot temperatures. Baltimore and other parts of Maryland were under an excessive heat warning, as heat index values could climb to 110F, forecasters said.

“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors,” said a National Weather Service advisory for the Baltimore area. “Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances.”

In Arizona’s Maricopa county, which encompasses Phoenix, there have been at least 13 confirmed heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 suspected heat deaths still under investigation, according to the county’s most recent report.

That does not include the death of a 10-year-old boy earlier this week in Phoenix who suffered a “heat-related medical event” while hiking with family at South Mountain park and preserve, according to police.