Country heads to the polls as latest polling shows 0.3-point gap between left and right wing blocs

Since you may not be ordinarily following the Swedish politics very closely, let me bring you up to speed on some of the key aspect of this year’s election.

Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer at Södertörn University in Stockholm, joined me over coffee earlier to offer some commentary to help us make sense of it.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight force says it wants to speak to men in connection with anti-migrant unrest that left seven officers injured

Police have released images of six men they would like to speak to after violent disorder in Portsmouth last week that left seven officers injured.

About 200 people gathered at Eastney Marina on Sunday night after a small boat carrying asylum seekers arrived on the south coast having crossed the Channel. The activists dispersed the following day in the early hours.

Royal Albert Hall, London
Penultimate Prom showcases antique brass and woodwind and humongous tubular bells in a magical mystery tour through an alien musical landscape

Other conductors and orchestras have taken a historically informed view of Mahler – Roger Norrington was among the first, and more recently Les Siècles – but the logical conclusion drawn by the Mahler Academy Orchestra at this penultimate Prom still had the power to shock an audience to its core. Their intention was to perform on – and push to the limits – the instruments the composer would have known, replicating period technique to explore what musicians of the day would have considered beautiful and what might have been thought vulgar (bearing in mind Mahler himself was frequently accused of questionable taste).

It’s the brainchild of conductor Philipp von Steinaecker who scoured auction rooms and attics seeking out antique Viennese brass and woodwind, French harps, Turkish cymbals (smaller than you might think) and the humongous tubular bells Mahler demanded but rarely got. Gut strings and minimal vibrato were expected, but the extremes of portamento and rubato deployed in this radical performance of the Ninth Symphony stretched an ear-opening interpretation almost to breaking point. The result, even for seasoned original instrument fans, was a magical mystery tour through an alien musical landscape.