Soaring church spires, the 1,000-year-old town centre unblemished by second world war bombing or graffiti, snow-capped Alps in the middle distance – Kaufbeuren, in Bavaria, can count many blessings.

Unemployment is in the low single digits, the Luftwaffe backed away from plans to move its training school for Eurofighter and Tornado jet technicians elsewhere and crime is at a historic low.

However, as voters prepare to elect a new European parliament next month, deep-seated fears have gripped a significant share of the electorate in one of the most affluent pockets of Europe’s top economy and delivered it to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The bond between the party and its voters appears unshaken even by a cascade of recent scandals. The AfD’s lead candidate for the election, Maximilian Krah, was forced by his party leadership on Wednesday to resign from its board and stop campaigning after he told Italy’s La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force which ran the death camps, were not all criminals and could only be judged on the basis of “individual guilt”.

The SS remark led France’s far-right National Rally (RN) to announce it would sever ties with the AfD in the EU assembly after the June election. The populist Identity and Democracy political group in the European parliament then moved to expel the AfD delegation “with immediate effect”.

Krah had already been in the spotlight for suspected Chinese and Russian ties after one of his aides was arrested on charges of spying for China. On the eve of his resignation, he told the Observer the allegations were “merely an attempt to distract from our political arguments” and threatened legal action against his accusers.

Polls show the AfD going into the EU election with 14-18% of the vote, well off its 23% high in October but up from its 11% score in 2019. Despite the rap on the knuckles, Krah is virtually guaranteed a seat in the next European parliament.

As he arrived for the Kaufbeuren rally last week wearing a blue suit and his trademark pocket handkerchief, Krah posed for selfies with dozens of fans including young men with short haircuts wearing lederhosen.

Surprisingly for many, the AfD continues to make inroads in Germany’s prosperous south and west, beyond its heartland in the poorer ex-communist east, as it embraces more extreme views on immigration, the war in Ukraine and national atonement for the Holocaust. But the right’s ascendancy has also given rise to a lively local pro-democracy movement that seeks to draw lessons from the town’s grim Nazi past.

In Kaufbeuren, nearly one in five gave the AfD their vote at the last state election in October. Pelted by cold rain, about 200 people gathered in a quaint old town square for the AfD rally waving large German flags. A similar number of peaceful counter-protesters rallied 300m away, led by the Omas gegen Rechts (Grannies Against the Right) movement and joined by mayor Stefan Bosse and a brass band.

Krah’s supporters said they were disgusted by chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition and anxious about their children’s future.

“It’s a catastrophe – the worst government we ever had,” said civil servant Manuela, 55, who was from a neighbouring town and, like most of the AfD supporters, declined to give her surname. She brought her teenage daughter to the rally. Despite the low rates of violent crime, she said her family no longer felt safe on the streets due to “Islamists”.

Anti-AfD activists booed and whistled from the sidelines as Krah addressed the rally. Manuela said: “They call us Nazis just because we’re patriots. The world laughs at us because no country is as dumb as Germany, with our exaggerated tolerance and diversity. They’ve been telling us for decades we should carry this guilt, and so we should rescue the whole world and be its dole office.”

A bombshell report in January revealed that senior AfD members had attended a meeting at a lakeside villa where they discussed a scheme for the mass deportation of German citizens with immigrant backgrounds. The revelation sparked anti-extremism demonstrations nationwide, including in Kaufbeuren.

Doreen, 53, who works in hospital catering, said the “remigration” plan appealed to her. “I have friends and acquaintances who migrated here and they agree: those who want to integrate should be able to stay, and those who just want to exploit the social welfare system should be told to go home.”

Elke, a 54-year-old nurse, said she liked the AfD’s opposition to what she called overreach in Berlin and Brussels. “I want to drive a car with an internal combustion engine, I want gas heating and I don’t want a war against Russia,” she said. “It would have been over long ago if all that money hadn’t flowed to Ukraine.”

Several AfD voters said they opposed Germany’s military support for Ukraine and worried about a Europe-wide conflagration triggered by standing up to Vladimir Putin.

As Krah took the stage, local party officials released eight white doves of peace into the overcast sky to applause from the crowd.

A father of eight, Krah spoke of his fear that his 21-year-old son could become “cannon fodder on the eastern front” if Germany brings back conscription, a proposal floated in limited form by defence minister Boris Pistorius to address looming security threats.

Krah warned that Kaufbeuren’s surrounding region of Swabia, “one of the richest parts of Germany”, was under threat from politicians who would take away its security and prosperity with climate protection measures and “mass migration”. He presented the AfD as the defender of “traditional families” while its opponents believed there were “53 genders”.

Bosse, the mayor, told the Observer that a large part of the AfD’s base in Kaufbeuren comprises ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union who arrived in the 1990s, many of whom harbour pro-Putin views. In the pandemic, the region also had a strong anti-vaxxer movement, which now opposes Nato aid for Ukraine.

Bosse has led the town for 20 years. In his wood-panelled office overlooking the town’s immaculate high street, he said that he was “ashamed” that the far right had gained a foothold again, despite efforts across the political spectrum to blunt its appeal.

“I also feel shame toward the British and French and all those who suffered so much under the Third Reich that in Germany you have a political force establishing itself that is trying to just wipe away these horrible crimes,” he said.

Bosse, from the conservative Christian Social Union, said he is haunted by a particular chapter of the Nazi past in Kaufbeuren, which under Adolf Hitler hosted a dynamite factory employing forced labourers, satellite concentration camps belonging to Dachau and a psychiatric hospital that orchestrated the extermination of more than 1,500 men, women and children.

Even after the town’s “liberation” by the US on 27 April 1945, the hospital continued to operate on the town’s outskirts under its Nazi administrators, Bosse said. Another 100 helpless patients were murdered before GIs finally took control of the facility on 2 July.

“It is incredible to me that, even after the second world war was over, no one in Kaufbeuren told the Americans what was happening and said: ‘You have to go in there and set them free,’” he said.

Speaking at the counter-demonstration, Bosse noted that 2 July is now marked by the town each year with a memorial ceremony for the victims as a reminder of the need for civil courage. “We have got to stand up for this democracy together,” he said.

The Great Taste awards are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history.

On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK.

Since January, anyone sending meat, dairy or fish products to the UK has to find a vet to fill out a seven-page form showing that the product is disease-free. And since April, exporters have also had to pay a fee of £29 for each product, whether it’s a container full of Irish beef or a single packet of Tayto cheese and onion crisps, unless they are for personal use. This includes the 13,672 samples sent to the Great Taste judges from 115 countries.

John Farrand, the managing director of the Guild of Fine Food, said: “The friction at the borders has tripped us up this year. We’re a bellwether for the wider problems in the market. It’s irritating for us because it’s going to cost us a lot more money to go and judge in Ireland. We’re going to judge [in Clonmel, Co Tipperary] to help the smaller food and drink producers who can’t cope with the paperwork and the cost.”

Some judging will still take place in the UK. Sally Ferns Barnes, a Scot who founded the Woodcock Smokery in West Cork in 1981 and won supreme champion at the 2006 Great Taste awards for her cold-smoked wild Atlantic salmon, is not entering this year. “We used to send entries every year,” she said. “It was a wonderful yardstick for us because you’re up against [about] 10,000 other products. When you win, you think, ‘I must be doing something right here’.

“I didn’t enter because I thought, ‘what’s the point – I can’t offer it to customers in the UK any more.’ ”

Barnes is the last Irish producer working exclusively with wild salmon – she refuses to use farmed salmon, and this creates a problem with the paperwork to export to the UK.

Fish get a “catch certificate” when they are landed to prove their origin, and Barnes needs this certificate to be able to apply for a vet’s health certificate to export to the UK. “An issue with wild salmon is that you don’t get catch certificates because it’s a freshwater fishery,” she said. “It’s not sea fisheries. So I’ve been trying to pester the [Irish] inland fisheries for information. They don’t know. They’ve never dealt with this. So they don’t know what to do.”

Neal’s Yard Dairy has previously sold Barnes’s salmon and had offered to include her in a regular shipment it is running for seven Irish cheesemakers, but she has not felt able to accept.

“If I don’t get it [the paperwork] 100% right and there’s one tiny thing wrong, the entire consignment would be delayed,” she said. “And you can’t do that with cheeses. I would be so deeply unpopular with all my cheesemaker friends.

“I’ve spoken to other producers who would have been exporting, and most of them are not interested any more. We’ll look to Europe instead.”

The possibility that a paperwork error will mean that entire consignments are delayed or even destroyed is a major risk for small food exporters like Barnes.

Border controls for the new Brexit red tape will cost at least £4.7bn, the National Audit Office said last week, and importers have complained that perishable shipments of food and flowers have faced delays, some up to 20 hours long, because computer systems have failed.

Overall, the cost of importing alone is likely to add £1bn to the UK’s food bill, according to the Cold Chain Federation, although the government estimates the cost will be £330m a year. Fruit and vegetables are not yet subject to the new rules but are expected to be included from October.

The import controls also affect suppliers to larger retailers, including supermarkets, who may need to send samples out to dozens of product buyers at different organisations on several occasions before they are accepted on to the supermarket shelves. So while someone sending a pot of French jam to a supermarket buyer in the UK would have spent a few euros per sample before Brexit, now they would spend closer to €100.

“There is a huge irony here that the government is telling us to do more trade with Europe and the rest of the world in light of Brexit,” Farrand said. “And we’re busy trying to get business with retailers, but the movement of samples is being affected by border controls.

“We are removing the colour, diversity and interest in our food and drink. We’re going to end up with fewer suppliers. That’s bad for our economy and for our nutrition.”

A government spokesperson said: “These border checks are fundamental to protecting the UK’s food supply chain, farmers and natural environment against costly diseases reaching our shores.

“Our robust analysis has shown they will have minimal impact on food prices and consumers, with just a 0.2% point increase on food prices over the next three years.

“The cost of checks is negligible compared to the impact of a major disease outbreak, such as foot and mouth disease in 2001, which cost our economy more than £12.8bn in 2022 prices.”

Donald Trump, the former US president, has suffered the rare humiliation of getting booed and heckled during a raucous speech to the Libertarian National Convention.

Trump’s rocky ride at a Washington hotel on Saturday night, including cries of “Bullshit!” and “Fuck you!”, underlined the challenge that the Republican presidential nominee faces to broaden his appeal both left and right on the political spectrum.

“The fact is we should not be fighting each other,” Trump pleaded. “If Joe Biden gets back in, there will be no more liberty for anyone in our country. Combine with us in a partnership – we’re asking that of the libertarians. We must work together. Combine with us. You have to combine with us.”

The appeal went down like a lead balloon as delegates booed, jeered and shouted insults. It was a stunning rebuke for a man who has become accustomed to cult-like rallies where his every word is cheered to the echo.

The Libertarian party, which prioritises small government and individual freedoms, typically gains 3% or less of the national vote but its members could yet prove crucial in swing states this November. Trump’s clumsy attempt to court them resulted in him scolding them instead.

Taking the stage, he was confronted by Libertarians, who have their own factional disputes, shouting insults and decrying him for running up huge federal deficits and enriching pharmaceutical companies with the coronavirus vaccine development. A smaller core of diehard Trump supporters clad in “Make America great again” hats and T-shirts chanted “USA! USA!”. One person unfurled a Palestinian flag.

Amid this melee, Trump’s appeal to Libertarians to vote for him or join his campaign were repeatedly rebuffed. Referring to the four criminal indictments against him, he joked: “If I wasn’t a libertarian before, I sure as hell am a libertarian now.”

The ex-president quoted an article written by political commentator Deroy Murdock arguing that Libertarians should vote for Trump. The crowd again erupted in boos and jeers.

Trump retorted: “Only if you want to win. Only if you want to win. Maybe you don’t want to win. Maybe you don’t want to win. Only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your 3% every four years.”

Trump went on to argue that Libertarians should make him their presidential nominee or at least vote for him in the election. Again there were boos and wails of derision. He went on: “The Libertarians want to vote for me and most of them will because we have to get rid of the worst president in history and together we will.”

The Republican promised that, if elected, he would put a Libertarian in his cabinet and others in senior posts. Again the crowd made clear its dissent. Ever the salesman, Trump prodded: “Pretty good. That’s pretty big.” But this time the old tricks did not work.

Again Trump chided them for getting 3% in past elections. Competing with chants, he said: “No, you want to make yourself winners, it’s time to be winners. You have a lot of common sense.”

Trump pressed on with his speech, saying he’d come “to extend a hand of friendship” in common opposition to Biden. That prompted a chant of “We want Trump!” from supporters, but more cries of “End the Fed!” – a common refrain from Libertarians who oppose the Federal Reserve. One person who held up a sign reading “No wannabe dictators!” was dragged away by security.

The ex-president claimed that much of his record was libertarian, citing examples such as tax cuts, slashing bureaucratic red tape, cancelling and defunding federal diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. He promised to appoint Libertarians to a taskforce to “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly persecuted” by Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump said: “As everyone knows, it will be my great honour to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters or, as I often call them, the hostages. They’re hostages. There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history. This abuse will be rectified and it will be rectified very quickly.”

“And if you vote for me on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.” The room, where many had been waving “Free Ross” signs, erupted in roars and whistles of approval. Ulbricht was the founder of Silk Road, an online marketplace for the sale of heroin, cocaine, LSD and other illegal drugs, who in 2015 was sentenced to life in prison.

With that the tide had turned in Trump’s favour and his gamble of addressing the convention was looking less disastrous than it first appeared. The crowd gradually became more muted and supportive.

The ex-president received further acclaim for pledging to sign an executive order banning federal agencies from censoring free speech, introduce record tax cuts, oppose the Green New Deal and drill for oil and gas, secure the future of crypto and bitcoin currencies and defend religious liberty and gun rights.

Still, not everyone was won over. When Trump said, “I want your support and again, you can either nominate us and put us in the position or give us your vote,” a chorus of boos rose again.

Afterwards one delegate, who gave his name only as Joe, said: “He’s full of shit.”

Glen Lewis, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, said: “It was a lot of politicking. He came here to tell us to pull our people’s votes towards him using the fear of Joe Biden’s presidency. But real men and women vote on integrity.”

Lewis, 54, a military veteran who served in Afghanistan, added: “I went into the group of Trump supporters who could not defend him printing money. They could not defend him giving immunity to the pharmaceutical companies. They could not defend him not stopping wars. I will benefit him with not starting any new ones, but he did not end the ones that were there.”

Michael Fitch, 35, who has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 2012, said he appreciated Trump’s “bravery” in coming to the convention but has no intention of voting for him. “A lot of people like Donald Trump because they think he’s a conservative but he’s not a conservative,” he said. “He actually raised the deficit – he spent millions and millions of dollars.

“He capitulated to the pharma regime. Obviously his base, the Maga revolution, is very anti-lockdown but Donald Trump was the one who did Operation Warp Speed. We can’t let this guy off the hook: if we’re gonna come after [Anthony] Fauci and Biden, Trump’s on the same list. He’s just as complicit as the rest of them. I don’t think his base fully appreciates that and Donald Trump isn’t going to be the one to tell them it.”

Joe Gravagna, 77, a retired computer security worker from Westfield, Indiana, said he voted the Libertarian candidate in 2020 but might consider Trump this time. “I like his ideas on deregulation, de-weaponising the justice system and non-intervention. He’s less of a hawk. I don’t think he likes wars. Anybody worth their salt would not have left Afghanistan with $88bn worth of weapons left behind.”

Among the committed Republicans in the room was Brandi Bohannon, 37, from Gulf Shores, Alabama. She said: “He’s different. No wars. He doesn’t get paid off by K Street. He’s honest. He’s feisty.

“We’ve never had a border this open ever – what, 8m have crossed? These wars would have never happened under Trump. Russia would never have invaded Ukraine. Israel and Palestine wouldn’t have gone to war. Serbia and Bosnia look like they’re about to go after each other again. So scary times.”

Libertarians will pick their White House nominee during their convention, which wraps up on Sunday. Trump’s appearance also gave him a chance to court voters who might otherwise support independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr, who gave his own Libertarian convention speech on Friday.

Rishi Sunak has announced that a future Conservative government would bring back mandatory national service, as he attempted to reignite his election campaign after an error-strewn start.

Under the plan, which appeared to be his latest attempt to reduce Tory losses by winning over voters drifting to Reform UK, the prime minister late Saturday said that every 18-year-old would have to spend time in a competitive, full-time military commission or spend one weekend a month volunteering in “civil resilience”.

The party said that the country needed to be “open and honest” about the long-term challenges it is facing, adding the scheme would ensure young people had “the opportunities they deserve”.

The proposals would see a “bold new model of national service” for 18-year-olds that could see them opt to spend one weekend per month volunteering in roles such as special constable, RNLI volunteer, or NHS responder. Officials claimed it would give young people “real world skills, while contributing to their country and community”.

In practice, a royal commission would be set up to design the new national service programme, leading to a pilot programme to open for applications in September 2025. However, it would be backed in law by a National Service Act.

The Tories insisted the scheme did not amount to conscription, stating that the Covid pandemic had shown the importance of civic service. The party said that a new scheme was “completely essential”.

“Only by nurturing our shared culture and fostering a sense of duty can we preserve our nation and values for decades to come. This is an investment in both the character of young people and our security,” it said.

It insisted a similar scheme was successful in Sweden, claiming 80% of young people completing national service said they would recommend it to their peers.

Labour lambasted the idea as another uncosted policy from the Tories, who have already raised the prospect of tax cuts they have yet to fund. “This is another desperate, £2.5bn unfunded commitment from a Tory party which already crashed the economy, sending mortgages rocketing, and now they’re spoiling for more,” said a spokesperson.

“This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon. Britain has had enough of the Conservatives, who are bankrupt of ideas, and have no plans to end 14 years of chaos. It’s time to …rebuild Britain with Labour.”

The Tories said the scheme would be part-funded through a £1bn tax avoidance clampdown and £1.5bn currently spent on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. A similar scheme was outlined in 2010 by David Cameron. Under his proposals, a special youth programme for 16-year-olds would be established to end a “pointless waste of potential” among teenagers. The plans never came to fruition.

Sunak was accused of hypocrisy over his scheme. In January, the prime minister rebuked the chief of the general staff, Sir Patrick Sanders, following his suggestion the UK might need a citizen army to fight Putin. The prime minister’s spokesman said at the time that Sunak did not agree with his comments and insisted there would be no return to national service, which was abolished in 1960.

Labour figures also privately accused the Tories of making 18-year-olds fix the problems the government had created, by boosting numbers in the military, helping the NHS and repairing infrastructure.

Erik ten Hag says he will join another club and keep winning trophies if Manchester United press ahead with plans to sack him after their shock 2-1 triumph over Manchester City in the FA Cup final.

Along with delivering what may be viewed as a final parting shot before he learns of his fate, Ten Hag was unable to offer any clarity on what the future holds for him. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the minority owner who controls United’s football policy, had earlier refused to say whether the victory over City would be enough for the Dutchman to stay.

United have already identified candidates to replace Ten Hag, who won the Carabao Cup final last season, and are ready to make a change after finishing eighth in the Premier League, despite the FA Cup triumph delivering European football next season.

“I don’t think about this,” Ten Hag said. “I am in a project. We are exactly where we want to be. We are constructing a team. When I took over it was a mess. The team is developing and winning. It is about winning trophies. The team plays to an identity. You need a strong squad.

“You need players available and there is a lot of work to do. The team is progressing and we are winning trophies. Two trophies in two years is not bad. I am not satisfied. If they don’t want me any more I will go [somewhere else] to win trophies because that is what I do in my whole career.”

United, who implemented Ten Hag’s tactics to perfection and won thanks to first-half goals from the teenagers Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, secured Europa League qualification after ending City’s hopes of completing a double Double.

Yet the conversation was dominated by Ten Hag’s position. Before the final he had said to Dutch media that the club told him they want him to stay. But the 54-year‑old was evasive when pressed on whether that message was relayed to him during a review with the United hierarchy last week.

“How many times do I have to tell you this?” Ten Hag said. “Do I have to repeat myself 10 times? Twenty times? They don’t have to tell me every week. I was in some clubs where every day they tell you: ‘You are the best.’ If they tell me they don’t want me any more then I will hear it.”

Notably, Ratcliffe did not single Ten Hag out for praise. “It is a glorious feeling to win the FA Cup final at Wembley,” the Ineos magnate said. “Manchester United clearly were not the favourites to win today but they played with total commitment and skill and overcame one of the great teams in football. We are all very proud of the players and the staff who work tirelessly to support them.”

Ten Hag, who has repeatedly claimed his team’s poor form is down to injuries, was asked if United need stability. “I don’t have to think about this,” he said. “When you see the last decade, there were not so many finals for this club, not so many trophies, not so many young talents coming through. We strengthened the squad by our coaching. We also need transfer windows to bring players in and players who are always available.”

United are monitoring Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino, Graham Potter, Kieran McKenna, Thomas Frank and Gareth Southgate. Ten Hag was asked if it was disrespectful that the club have been speaking to candidates. “I don’t know if they did this,” he said. “I can’t answer this question.”

Responding to Ten Hag’s claim that “we are exactly where we want to be”, it was suggested that the injury crisis did not excuse United finishing eighth and ending with a negative goal difference. “When you make it like this you don’t have any knowledge about managing a football team,” Ten Hag replied. “If that is the opinion I will go anywhere else. I will stay winning trophies.”

Pep Guardiola admitted his tactics were wrong after City, who looked jaded after winning the league title last Sunday, failed to defend their trophy. They improved when Jérémy Doku came on at half-time but the winger’s goal came too late. “We were not in the right position,” Guardiola said. “It was my mistake. The gameplan was not good.”

“Energy efficient”, “carbon neutral” and “net zero” are buzzwords we hear more and more as we face the impact of climate change. But do we think about them enough in building?

Globally, a move towards sustainable housing is growing. In Europe, efforts to move to greener homes hope to combat rising energy costs and be better for the planet. But 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions still come from the real estate sector.

In Australia, off-grid electric homes are becoming more common. A recent report by the University of New South Wales is pushing the built environment industry to reach net zero by 2040, and according to a 2024 study by Domain, energy-efficient real estate is attracting more interest than conventional homes.

But even if net zero housing – which means your home releases no net carbon – is not yet the norm, many architects are beginning to champion sustainable design, aiming for high energy ratings and future-proofing homes to adapt with the changing climate.

By reducing their carbon footprint, and using passive design – which focuses on conditions like sunlight and layout instead of artificial climate control – these net zero homes make it clear that going back to basics is key to making the switch.

Huff’n’Puff Haus, Strathbogie ranges, Victoria

Once upon a time a big bad wolf could huff, puff, and blow the straw house down. But not any more – in rural Victoria, Envirotecture’s Huff’n’Puff Haus is here to stay.

Asked to create an off-grid, all-electric, energy-efficient home, architect and director Talina Edwards set out to build a house that would let two empty nesters age in place for years to come.

Huff’n’Puff house is made from prefabricated, structurally insulated straw bale panels about 300-350mm thick and has “passivhaus premium certification”, which means it generates more renewable energy than it uses.

As a waste product, straw not only sequesters CO2 – reducing the embodied carbon of the project – but is an under-utilised material in building. Edwards says the amount of straw burned in paddocks annually would be enough to insulate 40,000 homes in Australia every year.

Envirotecture also aimed to use sustainably sourced timber, reduce use of plastic during building and focused on good ventilation strategy for healthy air quality. The house needs hardly any heating and cooling, instead relying on orientation, cross ventilation, passive shading and natural light.

“The cost of building anything is expensive, but not the cost of building well,” says Edwards.

“If you reduce the size and maybe you don’t have so many built-in pieces of joinery … you can choose how to prioritise.”

Despite Australia’s “obsession” with large homes, the 200 sq metre house is flexible and functional – a corridor opens out into spaces instead of whole rooms. A breakfast bar can become a study space; a window seat, a place to look at the view.

“On a regional site it always looks a bit odd if you’ve just got this tiny little house, but we did keep it a modest size,” says Edwards. “I think that’s the first tip for anyone building no matter where.”

The project has won many awards since its completion and is shortlisted in the sustainability category in the House awards. But for Edwards, it is not about accolades.

“Everyone kept saying, it’s so beautiful … but it’s not about what it looks like,” she says.

“… The beauty of it is beyond skin deep. What’s hidden behind? What’s the true heart of what this is doing?… It’s honest beauty, not just considering the aesthetics.”

39S House, Brisbane, Queensland

On a 240 sq metre block in Brisbane, architect Andrew Noonan has breathed new life into a dilapidated Victorian-era timber cottage, giving the five bedroom family home a net zero future.

Aiming for a “whole-of-life net zero” home – one that takes as much carbon out of the system through energy production and materials as it takes to build – Noonan went back to basics, applying passive-design principles to literally turn the house around.

“The house originally ran north-south. It had a very long west-facing facade,” says Noonan.

“100m away there is Suncorp stadium … and a main road, so quite noisy on that same western side … it became quite an opportunity to do one big move to solve a couple of problems.”

Noonan removed a 1930s extension at the rear of the home and added a new extension to achieve east-west orientation. It’s a five bedroom home, with four of them occupied, but Noonan says necessity must be questioned when building.

“Do we all need media rooms? Do we all need three, four or five bathrooms?” he says, adding that key to the net zero approach is letting the climate dictate material choice to ensure a lifespan beyond the 55-year average for a home.

If you have high-quality doors and windows “they’ll very much last beyond the life of the building,” Noonan says.

“If they’re made in a way that’s designed to be thermally efficient – not cheap, single piece aluminium frames with very thin glazing in them … but something that is thinking about performance – that will have an ongoing value.”

39S House also has no heating or cooling, instead relying on heavily insulated timber framing and orientation to cater to Brisbane’s humidity.

And while Noonan recommends electrifying everything by switching to induction appliances, air source heat pumps and getting photovoltaic panels– which are slightly different to solar – he says gadgets “won’t solve the problem if it’s not worked out in a more simple way first”.

Green space occupies 50% of the site, reducing external heat. The air temperature directly outside the doors and windows is 15 degrees cooler than it would be if the area was paved with no trees.

And the home also considers Brisbane’s propensity to flood, lifting the house above ground and aiming to absorb flood waters into the soil, slowing the run-off rate downstream.

“Just because it’s doing some really interesting sustainability things doesn’t mean it has to look like a tree house,” says Noonan.

“It can look like it can look like any house … the aesthetic doesn’t really tie into the performance.”

Farrier Lane House, Perth, Western Australia

Architect Matt Delroy-Carr set out to build an affordable, high performing family home. But when a lifecycle assessment partway through the project came back carbon neutral, he added net zero status to the list.

His home, Farrier Lane House, now acts as a demonstration project on how to build sustainably for his practice MDC Architects.

“A 180 sq metre-house might have exactly the same things in it as an 140 sq metre-house like mine,” says Delroy-Carr. “It’s just got 40 sq metres of wasted area that’s inefficiently designed.”

Farrier Lane House has large windows to open up the space. Its house-to-garden ratio heavily favours green space, filling 60% of the site to extend the liveability of a smaller-footprint home.

Inside, it has a double brick ground floor, providing a solid thermal mass, a hybrid upper floor with reverse brick veneer and timber-framed floors throughout.

But Delroy-Carr says often the more you focus on carbon neutrality through material use, the harder it is to get a high NatHERS star rating.

“The rating system heavily favours masonry construction … it loves brick and concrete, because they’re high thermal mass materials,” he says.

In 1993 I was working as a young criminal lawyer for Aboriginal Legal Aid in the Northern Territory. One day I was sent to the remote community of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land to pay our respects at the funeral of Roy Dadaynga Marika, “the father of land rights”.

Overwhelmed by the beauty and richness of the ceremony and the shock of seeing my first dead body, I staggered out of the funeral shelter and turned back for a moment to take a photo of the pomp and colour of the scene, including the beautiful woman sitting right in front of me.

The moment I pointed the camera at her she turned towards me with a look of disgust that seemed to say, “Who is this ignorant tourist?” I later found out she was Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr, Marika’s adopted daughter.

Some months later I was back in Yirrkala, fishing at the local beach. An old lady had shown my dad a foolproof secret fishing spot on my previous trip. Merrkiyawuy was on the beach with her friends, assuring them I would never catch anything. Just then, to everyone’s surprise, I caught a massive cod.

Merrkiyawuy and her friends rushed over to congratulate me and offered to help me cook it but I was so shy in front of this beautiful woman that I grabbed the fish and took off.

A couple of months later we ended up at the same party in Darwin where everyone was dancing on the lawn. When the music slowed down Merrkiyawuy asked me to dance but I told her I didn’t know how. She dragged me to the centre of the lawn as the song changed to Anne Murray singing “Could I have this dance for the rest of my life?” I slumped on her, the way we did at primary school socials, as that was the only step I knew.

I asked her on a date the next night and took her to the best restaurant I knew. I made a big deal about rejecting the waiter’s suggested wine choice and insisted on the most expensive bottle for $50.

As we began to share our stories she told me she had been a backup singer with the band Yothu Yindi and was now working as a schoolteacher. She said she had two children but could not have any more. From somewhere outside my body I heard myself say, as if to contradict her, “I have a strong totem!” I still have no idea where that humiliating statement came from.

As we were leaving I asked the waiter for another bottle of the $50 wine and he explained we could take BYO wine that we hadn’t finished but we couldn’t buy wine from the restaurant. I gave him a nod and a wink and he opened a bottle for me and we took it away.

The emotions of the evening and the expensive wine took a toll on me. When Merrkiyawuy told me she was going to “sing” me (a form of love spell), I spewed on her! All I remember after that was her walking me up and down the street to sober me up.

At the time I was living under someone’s house in central Darwin with only shade cloth for walls. But it was just next to the offices of Legal Aid. And that is where I snuck off to the next morning, leaving her asleep. Mine was a true walk of shame. She was heading to a conference in New Zealand that morning and I knew I had blown my chances with this most graceful, clever, funny, beautiful woman.

After a day in court and beating myself up over my stupidity, I came home to find a handmade card on my bed. Merrkiyawuy had cut out a photo of herself and stuck it to the front. Inside was a $50 note and the words: “Buy yourself another bottle of wine.”

Her compassionate humour and the fact she could forgive me convinced me I was still in with a chance.

Fourteen months after our first date, we married. Our daughter, Siena, was born eight years after that. We will celebrate our 30-year wedding anniversary in December.

Merrkiyawuy is now an award-winning author, the co-principal of Yirrkala school and the true Mary Poppins of the north, loved by the many children she has taught over three decades. Her eyes are always on the needs of the community. My eyes are generally on her. I am in constant awe of her grace, beauty and big brain.

Ten years after we married someone returned a pile of items from an old house I’d lived in. Included in the pile was the photo of my wife I had taken at the exact moment I first saw her. She was scowling at me. With good reason.

In the 18th century an enslaved mixed race woman named Quasheba escaped from a sugar plantation where she was held captive on Barbados.

There are no records of Quasheba’s fate, but the horrific conditions from which she fled in 1783 are well-documented. She is simply recorded in official papers as “run away”.

Other enslaved people on the same plantations killed themselves in the face of violence, punishment and tyranny. People transported from west Africa were forced “under the whip” to harvest canes and carry them to the mills to be crushed and boiled. Many were branded with hot irons.

The sugar estate, known as the Codrington plantations, generated an estimated £5m a year in today’s money and covered 763 acres. It was owned and overseen by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), the missionary arm of the Church of England.

The Codrington estate is now one of the focal points in a public debate about the Church of England’s links to chattel slavery, in which people were traded as personal property.

The Observer this weekend reveals evidence found in the archives of Lambeth Palace library of how an archbishop of Canterbury in the 18th century approved funds to buy enslaved people.

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, this weekend said it was “particularly painful” to read that a predecessor was involved in buying enslaved people. He said: “While nothing can fully atone for these crimes, we are committed to finding out more, realising this will take many years.”

Robert Beckford, professor of social justice at the University of Winchester, said: “I think there is a lot more in the archives that will reveal the extent to which the Church of England was involved in transatlantic chattel slavery and this was probably just the tip of the iceberg.”

Beckford said a more thorough review was required to quantify the extent of the church’s links. He claimed the Church had previously “distanced” itself from its activities in the SPG, and needed to acknowledge “this difficult part of its history”.

In 1710 Christopher Codrington, a colonial administrator and plantation owner, left on his death a bequest to the SPG of the two plantations in the east of Barbados. His will stipulated they should be maintained and “continued entire with three hundred negros at least kept always thereon” and that the estate should be used for education, with “a convenient number of professors and scholars … all of them to be under the vows of poverty and chastity and obedience.”

Codrington, a former fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, also left a £10,000 bequest to All Souls for a new library. The college has put a memorial plaque at the entrance to the library in memory of those who worked in slavery on the plantations.

Enslaved people on the estate left to the SPG were until at least 1732 branded “society” on the chest with hot irons, to show they were the property of the Church’s missionary arm. One plantation manager was a “particularly vicious” individual, according to a source cited by historian Travis Glasson in his book Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World.

Death rates among enslaved people were high. From 1710 to 1838, it is estimated that between 600 and 1,200 lived and died on the plantations. From 1712 to 1761 the SPG purchased at least 450 enslaved Africans.

Rewards were paid for the return of escapees. In August 1725, the plantation paid twelve pounds and six shillings for the return of five “runaway negroes”, according to documents seen by the Observer.

The SPG was overseen by Church of England leaders and the incumbent archbishop of Canterbury would typically serve as its president. On 17 November 1758 Thomas Secker, the then archbishop, chaired a meeting of the SPG and agreed to reimburse funds to the society accounts for “the purchase of new negroes [from Africa] and for the hire of enslaved labour from a third party”.

Secker was told the measures were “calculated for the future lasting advantage of the estates”. It was agreed that £1,093 be paid. Two years later Secker approved another payment of £264 for new enslaved people. A meeting, chaired by Secker on 15 August 1760, recorded the funds were for “the purchase of nine negroes in the beginning of the year”.

Secker’s personal correspondence that year indicates an awareness that the need for new purchases of enslaved people from Africa was connected to the high death rate. He also reflected on their desperate plight. In a 1760 letter to a bishop he wrote: “I have long wondered and lamented that the negroes in our plantations decrease and new supplies become necessary, continuously. Surely this proceeds from some defect, both of humanity and good policy. But we must take things as they are at present.”

Research shows that by 1781 there were 162 enslaved persons who were field workers at Codrington, 73 of them children. Another 60 enslaved persons worked as stock keepers or in other jobs. A list of English manufactured goods shipped to the plantations in 1756 includes four dozen agricultural hoes “very small for children”.

A school for white boys was opened on the estate in 1745, housed in an imposing building with thick limestone walls, and in 1830 Codrington College opened to train candidates for the ministry. It remains there today and is the oldest Anglican college in the Americas. It is managed by the Codrington Trust, established in 1983 and now the estate’s governing body.

The SPG was united in 1965 with the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, forming what is now known as the United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG). Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is the USPG president, but it is now governed by an independent trustee board.

The church apologised in 2006 for its “involvement in the slave trade” and the operation of the Codrington estate, but faces calls to acknowledge the extent of its role in the plantations in Barbados and agree reparations.

The Church Commissioners, which manages Church assets, has done extensive work on its links to chattel slavery. It published a report last year showing how its £10bn endowment fund was partly linked to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a financial scheme established in 1704 which invested funds in transatlantic chattel slavery.

The USPG apologised for its historic role at the Codrington estate in September last year. In a statement to the Observer, it said it pledged £7m in response to proposals from the Codrington Trust for a renewal and reconciliation project. The apology and investment was criticised for being announced without dialogue and agreement with the Barbados National Task Force on Reparations.

The Church Commissioners has said that questions on the work to address the history of the Codrington plantations are a matter for the USPG. An exhibition on historic links to chattel slavery last year only briefly touched on the plantations, but the Church states on its website there are further documents in the Lambeth Palace library and “we anticipate having more information and artefacts to share in due course”. Officials said the exhibition had been staged in the context of the work on the Queen Anne’s Bounty.

Trevor Prescod, a Barbados MP and chair of the Barbados National Task Force on Reparations, said: “The church was one of the main bodies that justified enslavement of Africans. They can’t escape that responsibility and must right the wrongs.”

The Church Commissioners said: “The Church Commissioners is committed to researching its history and sharing our findings transparently. Some historians contacted us with feedback on the Lambeth Palace library exhibition last year – we are grateful for their feedback and will continue to welcome constructive engagement as we seek to learn and understand more.”

Making reparations

In November 2023, insurance market Lloyd’s of London agreed to invest £52m to promote racial equality in recognition of its “significant role” in the transatlantic slave trade. An independent review by Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, found the insurance market was part of “a sophisticated network of financial interests and activities” that made transatlantic slavery possible.

The Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian and Observer, apologised in March last year for the role the founders of the Guardian had in transatlantic slavery. Research commissioned in 2020 found John Edward Taylor, the journalist and cotton merchant who founded the Manchester Guardian in 1821, and at least nine of his 11 backers had links to chattel slavery. The trust said it expected to invest more than £10m during a decade of restorative justice. The Guardian’s journalistic series, Cotton Capital, explores the history of transatlantic slavery and its legacy.

The Bank of England presented new research in an exhibition in 2022 that it had owned 599 enslaved people in the 1770s, after taking possession of two plantations in Grenada.

The National Trust published a report in September 2020 which found that up to a third of its properties had links to colonialism or slavery. It found 29 properties had links to successful claims for compensation after the abolition of slavery. The Slavery Abolition Act (1833) provided for £20m compensation to be paid to the owners of “slave property”.

The brewery and pub chain Greene King, founded in 1799, apologised in June 2020 for its links to chattel slavery. Founder Benjamin Greene owned sugar plantations in the West Indies, where he enslaved people.

Joe Biden has called newly graduating US military officers the “guardians of American democracy” at a commencement speech at the elite West Point military academy in New York state, where the US president, without mentioning Donald Trump by name, gave strong warnings of unprecedented threats to US freedom.

Biden, speaking in front of about 1,000 graduating cadets at the US army training academy on Saturday, urged the newly minted officers to “hold fast” to their military oath “not to a political party, not to a president but to the constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.

In remarks that could be seen as a thinly veiled reference to the threat to democracy Biden believes Trump poses to the US as the two candidates battle for the White House in this November’s election, the president said that the oath taken by the military is “as important to your nation now as it ever has been”.

“From the very beginning, nothing is guaranteed about democracy in America. Every generation has an obligation to defend it, protect it, preserve it – now it is your turn,” said Biden, who cited the right to vote, the right to worship and the right to protest as key freedoms that require “constant vigilance”.

The president said that the US was founded on an idea of equality but that “ideas need defenders to make them real and that’s what you, the class of 2024, are all about. The defenders of freedom, champions of liberty, guardians – and I mean this – guardians of American democracy. You must keep us free at this time, like none before.”

Biden outlined a global situation that he said had placed unprecedented challenges upon the US military, warning that the cadets are “graduating into a world like none before … There’s never been a time in history when we’ve asked our military to do so many many different things in so many different places around the world, all at the same time.”

The president reaffirmed that the US will continue “standing strong” with Ukraine in the face of a “brutal tyrant” in the form of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, although again reiterated no US troops will be sent to the conflict.

Biden said that the Nato alliance was “stronger than ever”, praised the US military for its efforts in erecting a pier and delivering air drops to provide aid to Palestinians suffering amid Israel’s war in Gaza, and said that the US was “standing up for peace and stability” regarding the threat posed by China to Taiwan.

“The upshot of all of this, across vastly different regions and very different challenges, our men and women in uniform are hard at work strengthening our alliances,” Biden said, adding that the military was “standing up to tyrants and safeguarding the peace and protecting freedom and openness. We are doing what only America can do, as the indispensable nation.”

Biden is scheduled to participate in Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Monday. A week later, he will travel to Normandy, France, to participate in ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-day invasion.

Biden is expected to give a major speech about the heroism of Allied forces in the second world war and the continuing threats to democracy today.

On Saturday, he made his first address at West Point as president, having twice addressed a graduating class of cadets when he was vice-president. The elite training academy is about 40 miles (65km) north of New York City.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to run against Biden in the 2024 election, was the last president to speak at a West Point commencement, in 2020.

College campuses nationwide have erupted in sometimes-violent protests over Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas following the militant group’s 7 October attack on southern Israel. Students have used commencement speeches at colleges such as Harvard, Duke and Yale universities to protest Biden’s actions, but no such demonstrations were expected at West Point and the commencement passed without incident.

The West Point military academy was founded in 1802 by then president Thomas Jefferson to train army officers, and it has produced some of the US’s greatest generals, including two who went on to become president.

Trump, meanwhile, has seen some of his support from the military community erode. In 2016, he won 60% of voters who said at the time that they served in the military, according to exit polls conducted by NBC News.

That figure dropped to 54% in 2020, according to NBC News. In 2020, Biden won 44% of voters who said they served in the military, according to the data.

Reuters contributed reporting

Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop golden rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.

The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of golden rice, which was developed to combat vitamin-A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.

But campaigns by Greenpeace and local farmers last month persuaded the country’s court of appeal to overturn that approval and to revoke this. The groups had argued that golden rice had not been shown to be safe and the claim was backed by the court, a decision that was hailed as “a monumental win” by Greenpeace.

Many scientists, however, say there is no evidence that golden rice is in any way dangerous. More to the point, they argue that it is a lifesaver.

“The court’s decision is a catastrophe,” said Professor Matin Qaim, of Bonn University, and a member of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, which promotes the introduction of the crop. “It goes completely against the science, which has found no evidence of any risk associated with golden rice, and will result in thousands and thousands of children dying.”

The decision is to be challenged by the Philippines government and agriculture experts say it is likely it will be overturned sometime in the near future. But the setback is still likely to have profound impacts. Other countries such as India and Bangladesh – where vitamin A deficiency is also widespread – have been considering planting golden rice but are now likely to be deterred.

“The situation is extremely alarming,” said Adrian Dubock, another board member. “Planting golden rice was not being done for profit. Nobody was trying to control what farmers grow or control what people eat. It was being done to save lives.”

Vitamin A is found in most foods in the west but in developing countries it is conspicuously lacking in diets, a deficiency that “is associated with significant morbidity and mortality from common childhood infections, and is the world’s leading preventable cause of childhood blindness,” according to the World Health Organization. Estimates suggest it causes the deaths of more than 100,000 children a year.

As a solution, Peter Beyer, professor of cell biology at Freiburg University in Germany, and Ingo Potrykus of the Institute of Plant Sciences in Switzerland, began work in the 1990s using the new technology of genetic manipulation. They inserted genes into the DNA of normal rice to create a variant that could make beta-carotene, a rich orange-coloured pigment that is also a key precursor chemical used by the body to make vitamin A.

This is golden rice, which has since been shown to be an effective source of vitamin A in humans. Countries, including America, Australia and New Zealand, have ruled golden rice is safe. Yet three decades after its development it has still to be grown commercially – thanks to the green movement’s vociferous opposition to the growing of any GM crop, regardless of any potential benefit it might possess.

“Golden rice was the first transgenic crop to be created that benefited people not companies or farmers, yet its use has been blocked from the start,” Potrykus told the Observer last week. “I am extremely worried about the decision of the Philippines court, not just for its impact on the take-up of golden rice but its effect on the growing of other transgenic crops.”

This view is shared by many scientists. In 2016, more than 150 Nobel laureates signed an open letter that attacked Greenpeace for campaigning against golden rice and other GM crops. Greenpeace had “misrepresented the risks, benefits and impacts” of genetically altered food plants, they said. “There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption.”

Greenpeace remains adamant, however. “There are specific problems with golden rice,” said Wilhelmina Pelegrina, head of Greenpeace Philippines, last week. “Farmers who brought this case with us – along with local scientists – currently grow different varieties of rice, including high-value seeds they have worked with for generations and have control over. They’re rightly concerned that if their organic or heirloom varieties get mixed up with patented, genetically engineered rice, that could sabotage their certifications, reducing their market appeal and ultimately threatening their livelihoods.”

Pelegrina added that relying on a single-crop system to alleviate malnutrition reduced resilience and increased vulnerability to climate impacts – a serious problem in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. “If things don’t work out, it’s the farmer and the consumers who pick up the tab.”

There are also more practical, tried-and-tested solutions to tackle vitamin-A deficiency such as food supplementation programmes and supporting people to grow a range of crops including those rich in vitamin A, she claimed. “That should be where attention and investment is focused.”