Alan the assassin, Clare as Boris Johnson and of course, Celia’s fart … the dynamite scenes have come thick and fast in the inaugural series. Here are the very best bits

Remember when fans feared that an all-star edition would risk ruining the hit reality game’s magic? A triumphant inaugural VIP series of The Celebrity Traitors has blown such worries out of the Highland loch water.

Ratings have surpassed 13m, overtaking Strictly Come Dancing as the BBC’s biggest franchise. It has been the most talked-about TV show of the autumn, if not the year. Anticipation is now at fever pitch for Thursday night’s final. As we approach the endgame, relive the highlights so far with our cloak-clad catch-up …

Annely Juda Fine Art, London
With this new collection of bright and bold still lifes, iPad experiments and splotchy portraits, the art-world titan is beginning to show his age in intriguing, unsteady ways that remain inimitably Hockney

He’s still at it, is David Hockney. At 88 years old, and more than 60 years into a career that has seen him rise to the very top of the contemporary art pile, Hockney is still painting, still experimenting, still innovating, and still having shows.

This exhibition – the first in a swish ultra-central London location for Annely Juda, his gallery since the 1990s – is packed with paintings so new you can almost smell the wet paint. The opening room is all eye-searingly bright still lifes: chairs, tables, fruit and flowers. It’s the most old-fashioned and staid of subject matter, but nothing Hockney does is that dull, is it?

The only way the chancellor can save herself is to lower living costs or make big improvements to public services. Farage waits in the wings if not

It may not feel that way, but these are pivotal weeks in modern British, and perhaps also modern European, politics. I do not know whether the ink is yet dry on the final draft of Rachel Reeves’s 26 November budget, let alone know what measures it will contain. But I do know that this budget matters more than any other in recent times.

Reeves would not have made her Downing Street speech on Tuesday simply to trail a business-as-usual package. The inevitable inference is that she plans a moment of enforced but necessary departure from tradition. The outcome, whether success or failure, will surely reshape politics for years to come.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Looking for a gift that’ll get tails wagging? We’ve rounded up cosy recycled fleeces, bamboo toys and delicious treats to delight pets (and their humans)

• No tat! 15 sustainable Christmas gifts for young children

Our pets are part of the family – 36% of households in the UK own a dog, and about 29% a cat – so it’s no wonder that we want to treat them at Christmas. Many will undoubtedly enjoy the paper you wrap the present in as much as what’s inside, yet it’s still worth making the effort to find that perfect (pawfect?) gift.

As an owner of two dogs, I like to make informed choices about what I buy them; I try to avoid plastic where I can (especially since the whippet loves to destroy a plastic toy), but it’s not always possible, and some of the products below do contain plastic. I opt for robust collars and leads (the brand mentioned here also runs a take-back scheme for worn-out gear), and hunt down independent companies instead of big brands. Ultimately, design-led, natural products will usually look better around your house and, in my experience, last longer.

The former England coach could’ve written a great book – instead he’s produced an AI-style word-sludge of generic leadership chat

This is an oddly dull, oddly irresistible football book. Even its title is confusing. Dear England is already the name of a hit Gareth Southgate play, a forthcoming Gareth Southgate TV show and an open letter to the nation authored by Southgate himself in 2021.

This Dear England isn’t formally related to any of those. It is instead an anomaly in the Dear England Multiverse, a book about leadership: a classically dull elite football manager trope that Southgate sticks to doggedly, using the words “leader”, “leading” or “leadership” at least 500 times in 336 pages. “What are leaders? What do leaders do? And what do leaders know?” he asks early on, setting out his stall, but stopping short of Why are leaders, How are leaders, or When are leaders?, questions he will presumably touch on in volume two.

Days before we ran interviews with gang leaders describing their alleged ties to Nayib Bukele’s government, we left the country to avoid arrest. We fear our exile will never end

• This story, republished with permission, was originally run by El Faro English

We figured we would spend only a few days out of the country. We figured that within a week of publishing, some other matter would distract the Salvadoran government. We would weigh the risks of returning and would then go back. We left with carry-on bags: no one was carrying more than 10 pairs of underwear.

We had invented a routine for these situations, which had worked out fine so many times before: “preventive departure”. One of us, for the first time, mentioned that the government would make us pay dearly. But we kept repeating “preventive departure”. We kept repeating it a week later, two weeks later, a month after we could not return.

Justice minister promises digital overhaul of ‘archaic’ paper system partly blamed for average of 22 people being wrongly freed each month

Prison governors in England have been summoned to an urgent meeting with ministers as the government comes under pressure over the wrongful release of two more prisoners, including a convicted foreign sex offender.

Alex Davies-Jones, a justice minister, told broadcasters she was “furious” about the “unacceptable” situation where an average of 22 people are wrongly released from prisons each month in England and Wales.

EV drivers would face 3p-a-mile charge on top of other road taxes to offset falling revenue from petrol and diesel cars

Rachel Reeves is drawing up plans for a new pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles to announce in this month’s budget worth an extra £250 a year on average, according to reports.

Under the plans expected to be announced on 26 November, EV drivers would face a new charge of 3p a mile on top of other road taxes to offset falling revenue from petrol and diesel cars as drivers switch to greener options.

Reliance on overseas students’ tuition fees under scrutiny as scholars describe chilling effect of being targeted

UK academics whose research is critical of China say they have been targeted and their universities subjected to “extremely heavy” pressure from Beijing, prompting calls for a fresh look at the sector’s dependence on tuition fee income from Chinese students.

The academics spoke out after the Guardian revealed this week that Sheffield Hallam University had complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, which had led to a big project being dropped.

Winds of Melissa’s strength are now five times more frequent due to the climate crisis, research says

Every aspect of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened by the climate crisis, a team of scientists has found.

Melissa caused widespread devastation when it crunched into Jamaica as a category five hurricane on October 28, with winds up up to 185mph.