Trump envoy accuses Putin of ‘stalling for time’ while bombing civilian targets

US president Donald Trump’s special envoy has accused Russia of “stalling for time” while bombing civilians across Ukraine.

Keith Kellogg said Moscow’s claim that the slow pace of talks was down to the US and Ukraine was “Orwellian” and “unfounded”.

“Russia cannot continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine,” Mr Kellogg said. “We urge an immediate ceasefire and a move to trilateral talks to end the war.”

Moscow rejected the claim, saying it was “naturally in favour of achieving the goals that we are trying to achieve through the special military operation via political and diplomatic means.”

Meanwhile, Russia has claimed that its forces have occupied the whole of illegally-annexed Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader of the occupied region, said he received a report “two days ago” saying that “100 per cent of the region was now under the control of Russian forces”. Kyiv has yet to comment on the claim.

Labrador-sized big cat could be reintroduced into wild in UK

The government’s wildlife chief has said he would be “absolutely delighted” if he could reintroduce lynx to Britain during his two-year term.

Tony Juniper, chair of Natural England – the government’s wildlife regulator – said that while debates over the labrador-sized cat’s return to the British wild remained polarised, more engagement was needed to understand how different communities would be affected.

This follows a draft application by Lynx UK Trust to return lynx to England’s largest forest, Kielder in Northumberland, using wild animals rescued from culls in Sweden.

Lynx, a species of cat which has been hunted to extinction in Britain, primarily live in forests and prey on deer or rabbits, posing no threat to humans. Lynx UK claim that they may be the answer to the UK’s overpopulation of deer, which has impacted forest regeneration with a knock-on effect on wider wildlife.

When asked if he believed lynx could be reintroduced by The Guardian, Mr Juniper said “it should be looked at and I know people are looking at it”, adding he hoped “a cross-border conversation with colleagues in Scotland” could boost prospects for the return of the species.

“Lynx do need big areas of habitat and there could be some opportunities to combine nature recovery over parts of northern England with what’s going on in southern Scotland,” he said.

“It is still quite polarised and some of these things will remain divided no matter how much effort you put in, but we need more engagement to understand how communities that would be living with these animals would be able to continue with what they do. There are in some places still serious doubts about that.”

Natural England officials have told the trust that a trial reintroduction can’t proceed because the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) rules it illegal under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act. The charity believe that this could be solved with a simple statutory instrument.

Chief executive, Paul O’Donoghue, told The Guardian that Steve Reed, environment secretary, had not responded to attempts to arrange a meeting, and warned that if the government didn’t review the trust’s application for a trial release licence, then the charity would launch a court challenge.

A Defra spokesperson said: “This government is absolutely committed to restoring and protecting nature and we support species reintroductions where there are clear benefits for nature, people and the environment.

“We will continue to work with Natural England on species reintroductions in England.”

Lynx are currently listed on the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, which means local authorities must licence lynx keeping and can’t release them unless into a secure enclosure.

Music critics say Oasis only made two good albums. Gen Z disagree

Born in Busan, South Korea just several days after Oasis’s Be Here Now became the fastest selling UK album of all time, Jeon Jung-Kook of the K-Pop supergroup BTS notched a similarly impressive statistic 25 years later in July 2023 when his debut solo single became the fastest song in history to surpass 1 billion streams on Spotify. (To give an idea of just how enormous an accomplishment this is, Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” took almost 10 years to achieve the same milestone.)

Soon after, as part of his promotional tour for “Seven”, Jung Kook stopped off at Radio 1 to perform in the live lounge where, as is customary, he performed his new single along with a cover of his choice. When it was trailed that the latter would be an Oasis song, most people tuning in likely would have presumed it would be one of their heavy hitters: “Don’t Look Back In Anger” or “Wonderwall” or maybe at a push “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”, which Leona Lewis covered in 2009 and turned into an X Factor audition standard (see: a then-unknown Harry Styles). But no. Jung Kook’s song of choice? The 2005 track “Let There Be Love”.

It was, to say the least, an esoteric choice. The long-running, somewhat sniffy, and fairly unanimous critical narrative surrounding Oasis is that the brothers made two good albums in Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? then nothing of value after that. So how on earth was the biggest pop star in the world – not yet born when said albums came out – aware of this relative obscurity?

The answer lies in the success of the Supersonic documentary. After its release in 2016, generation after generation of freshly hooked Oasis fans rushed to Spotify and discovered their post-1996 songs without the context of the times in which they were released. Many who heard, say, “Go Let It Out” upon its release in 2000 did so with people all around them endlessly screeching that Oasis were long finished and that this single – a UK No 1, but still – was evidence of that fact. That it was the lead single from their weakest album, 2000’s Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, did not help its critical reception. But to fresh ears as part of a playlist, sandwiched between “Morning Glory” and “Slide Away”? It’s just another great Oasis song.

To browse TikTok in the moments after the reunion announcement in 2024 was to see thousands of teenagers ecstatically miming along to Oasis songs most music critics likely never even bothered listening to before typing out their “it’s not a patch on Definitely Maybe” missives. There’s the motorik groove of “The Shock Of The Lightning” and the Liam-written blast of “Ain’t Got Nothin’”. The gorgeous Gallagher duet “Let There Be Love”. “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” (a vinyl-only bonus track on Morning Glory) is enjoying a particularly joyous second life.

It is this multi-generational reappraisal that has made news of the Oasis reunion that much more exciting. Part of Noel Gallagher’s reasoning for not reuniting with his brother sooner – among many other well-documented reasons – was that everyone who could possibly have wanted to see his band had surely had ample opportunity. Oasis had, after all, spent the 15 years after their imperial period playing stadiums all over the world. Even those who were but toddlers when “Live Forever” came out could have legally bought a drink while watching them play in 2009.

But from 2016 onwards, it became apparent that this was no longer the case, and that there was a whole new generation desperate to experience Oasis. At Liam Gallagher’s first solo show at Manchester Ritz in 2017 – which I attended along with lots of people far younger than me – he closed with the title track from Be Here Now: a song that even Oasis had stopped playing in 1998. That night, it went down as though it was one of their biggest hits. The band, too, never played “Roll It Over” – from the aforementioned, much maligned Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants – yet Liam felt confident enough to give the song its live debut in front of 85,000 people on his return to Knebworth in 2022.

The last time that I saw Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, meanwhile – at Alexandra Palace in July 2024, when he but very few others knew what was coming in a month’s time – he performed Stand By Me B-side “Going Nowhere” and was greeted with the kind of mass singalong normally reserved for enormo-hits. The fact that a good chunk of those voices belonged to teenagers says a lot.

When it comes to the reunion shows, Oasis have, I would say, about 75 minutes’ worth of music that they would not get out of the venues alive without playing. We all know which songs these are. But that still leaves plenty of room for a few deeper cuts, which will go down as well with their newfound Gen Z audience as it will with those who, like me, first got hooked on them in 1994.

Famously, of course, the story of Oasis extends far beyond their greatest hits anyway. A good slice of that 75 minutes are B-sides (“Acquiesce”; “Half The World Away”) and so perhaps it is time that their older, more cynical observers take a leaf out of their younger, less cynical counterparts and delve back into a latter day catalogue that, while undeniably patchy and not at-the-time-era-defining, is stuffed full of gems that are the equal of those bigger songs and worthy of attention.

In fact, it would be brilliant if somebody could co-author a book that, rather than going deep on 1994-1997 and then skipping over the next 12 years like they don’t really matter, celebrates the whole, glorious spectrum of Oasis for both new fans and old.

Oh wait. Somebody has…

‘A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story Of Every Song Oasis Recorded’ by Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain is published by Pan Macmillan on 3 July (£25, hardback – ebook and audiobook also available)

I quit the BBC over Gaza – Glastonbury proves I was right to do it

This weekend, if you wanted to watch Kneecap’s Glastonbury performance live on the West Holts stage, you wouldn’t have found it on the BBC. Instead, you’d have had to find Helen Wilson’s TikTok account, where the Welsh woman burnt her fingers holding her phone up in 30C heat to livestream the entire set from her spot in the festival audience, knowing that our public broadcaster had decided not to. Thousands were watching.

The band was one of the festival’s most anticipated acts, with organisers warning prior that there would be a large crowd for their performance. The BBC announced it wouldn’t be broadcasting the set live on TV, but that edited highlights would be offered later, on iPlayer.

“Whilst the BBC doesn’t ban artists”, it said in a statement, “our plans ensure that our programming meets our editorial guidelines.” This comes after band member Mo Chara was charged with a terrorist offence, for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a performance in 2024.

On the day, the BBC tried to play it safe, choosing to edit Kneecap’s performance for iPlayer. Surely this would shield it?

During the set, Mo Chara commented on the sheer number of Palestinian flags at the festival, and led crowds in chants of “Free Palestine”. Another band member wore a T-shirt reading “We are all Palestine Action”, in reference to the soon-to-be proscribed direct action group.

In the end, the BBC’s editorial timidity didn’t save it. Instead of livestreaming Kneecap’s Palestine chants, it livestreamed rap duo Bob Vylan’s, whose call-and-response about the Israeli military (“Death, death to the IDF”) has resulted in significant criticism – even from the prime minister – and demands that the broadcaster be defunded or prosecuted. Both Kneecap and Bob Vylan are now under police investigation.

For bad-faith critics, censorship – the most extreme editorial choice – will never be enough. Refusing to air band sets at Glastonbury, or editorially sound documentaries like Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, will never be enough. Sacrificing the BBC’s dearest editorial standards and values will never be enough. Because censorship is the call of those who don’t want reality to be shown – and the reality is that there’s growing public support for Palestine, and growing anger at Israel’s actions in Gaza.

This shows itself in the folk-hero status given to artists who speak up, in the hundreds of thousands who have protested down London streets across 20 months, in the sea of Palestine flags at Glastonbury. Public anger cannot be censored away, no matter how much anyone tries. If an artist shouts “Free, free” on a Glastonbury stage, the audience will roar “Palestine”. Showing the reality of this public sentiment should be a priority for our public broadcaster.

I want a BBC free of influence, a BBC that is editorially brave in the face of pressure. It’s crucial that our public broadcaster makes its editorial decisions freely, not based on the perceived anger of bad-faith critics, but based on accuracy, evidence, human rights, and core principles that must be upheld – principles such as free speech and public service.

The BBC that refused to remove a documentary series on Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, despite pressure from his government, is the BBC we need. It’s the BBC we deserve. Not the one where a member of the public has to burn her fingers to air what it won’t.

Karishma Patel is a former BBC newsreader and journalist who resigned over its coverage of Gaza

What really happens to your body when you are too hot to sleep

A sleepless summer night is its own special kind of torture. The light, bright evenings and early mornings you craved in the winter suddenly exist only to taunt you. That’s before you mention the heat, causing you to toss and turn until your sheets resemble a stick of chewed Wrigley’s as you incessantly turn the pillow over, desperate to find a cool spot.

And it’s not just the heat either, light from longer days can also affect our ability to sleep. American clinical psychologist Dr Michael Breus describes the summer mood as “reverse SAD [seasonal affective disorder]”. Our circadian rhythms are regulated by a part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN, located at the intersection of our optic nerves: light and darkness signal the processes that wake us up and make us sleepy.

“The early sunrises and late sunsets mean the body gets less of the darkness it needs to make melatonin, the hormone which promotes sleep,” says Dr Breus. This is not a warning to keep out of the fresh air – which in itself is important for sleep – but might be one of the reasons it can be hard to drop off after a day out in the sun.

The good news is that our bodies are wired to need less sleep in summer, according to research from a German study published last year. According to their findings, participants experienced seasonal variations in REM sleep, directly linked to our circadian rhythm, sleeping an hour longer in December than in June. Our REM sleep – the most “active” period during which we dream – was also shown to be 30 minutes longer in the winter than during the summer.

However, as anyone who has missed even one night’s sleep knows, the struggle of that next day where you seek out carbs and the smallest technology hitch becomes a weepy disaster.

“Our body clock was set 20,000 years ago, and nothing here has really changed,” says Dr Sophie Bostock, a sleep scientist and behavioural psychologist. “Our brains evolved to see sleep loss as a warning sign, so we tend to respond to short sleep by going into high alert.

“As the brain channels its energy towards self-defence, we divert resources away from the more rational parts of our decision-making machinery. We get more impulsive, make bad decisions and have less control over our emotions.”

We now know that sleep and mental health are inextricably linked, says Dr Bostock. “Poor sleepers are at more than twice the risk of future anxiety and depression than good sleepers.”

Various studies have also shown how longer-term sleeplessness raises our risk of physical conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart problems. Research shows that losing just one hour of sleep can lead to eating approximately 200 more calories the next day. Exercise is affected too with levels of endurance dipping as well as cognitive abilities with concentration levels challenged.

As the body begins secreting the sleep-promoting hormone around 9pm, light exposure can moderate your circadian rhythm a little bit, but to function at an optimal level requires consistent sleep and waking. Disruption of even just an hour can knock your sleep out of whack – with a cumulative effect seriously damaging health and wellbeing. All of which doesn’t bode well when you are facing a summer sleep drought. So how to survive it?

Nordic countries go for weeks in the summer without seeing the dark. “Many Norwegians create darkness themselves – with eye masks, covered window glass, and blackout curtains,” says Norwegian sleep writer, Terra Lynn.

“By simulating darkness, we can prompt these natural processes. Many Norwegians also make an effort to stay on a consistent sleep schedule despite the constant light during the summer months – especially waking up at, or close to, the same time every day.”

Note also the Scandinavian sleep method of sleeping with separate duvets, keeping you apart from your sweaty partner. The Australians also have long experience of sweltering summers. According to the website Healthy WA, it can help to apply cold compresses to your armpits, wrists and groin. The site also recommends putting a tray full of ice cubes in front of a fan in your bedroom.

These include consistent bedtimes and wake times, a dark (use a silk sleep mask which will cool as well as darken the eyes) and quiet room, and no coffee after lunchtime.

And while that glass of rose in the garden is tempting, and may even help you to drop off, do try not to overindulge. “Alcohol worsens your quality of sleep,” says Dr Bostock. “It affects your circadian rhythm, and blocks REM sleep, and will make it more likely you’ll wake up during the night as your body metabolises the booze.”

“Dehydration interferes with sleep because it messes up vasopressin – the hormone which manages fluid levels in the body,” says Dr Bostock. “It’s hard to recommend an ideal fluid intake, because it varies from person to person,” but she suggests stopping “an hour before bed, unless you want to be up and down to the loo all night.”

The NHS Eatwell Guide recommends that people should aim to drink six to eight cups or glasses of fluid a day. Water, low-fat milk and sugar-free drinks, including tea and coffee, all count.

Unless you suffer from chronic insomnia – in which case naps are generally not a good idea – taking a short siesta can help with daytime tiredness. “There are two optimal nap durations,” says Dr Breus. “A quick 20-minute snooze that energises you without post-nap grogginess, or a nap lasting 90 minutes, which is the length of a full sleep cycle and has also restorative benefits.”

The ideal time for a nap is approximately seven hours after you wake for the day, and fewer than six hours before bed.

This is the same all year round: between 16 to 19C. “On sunny days, keep the temperature down by leaving your bedroom curtains closed during the day. If you are lucky enough to have an air-conditioning unit or top-notch fan, keep the window closed at night to keep the humid air out.

“Otherwise,” Dr Bostock explains, “keep your window open. Even basic fans are a good idea because they help the air to circulate. This prevents the build-up of carbon dioxide – also bad for sleep.”

Dr Bostock also recommends a warm bath or shower in the late evening. “It’s relaxing, and also increases heat flow to your hands and feet, which cools the internal temperature,” she says. “Cold showers aren’t a great idea, because the shock induces the production of cortisol, which can keep you awake.”

Stick with natural fabrics in your bedding and nightwear: these “wick away sweat”, says Dr Bostock. What about sleeping naked, or without covers at all? “The jury’s out,” she says. “Many people find they need the ‘calming’ effect of touch, and having covers on their body.”

Take the heat out of the situation by using a method called CBT-I – or cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. This method teaches you the tricks to avoid getting anxious about not sleeping yet again and turning your bedroom into a battleground.

“If you are having a bad night, do your very best not to panic, or ‘catastrophise’,” says Bostock. “Tell yourself you are not a bad sleeper, you are merely having a bad night.

“And it’s true: if you don’t sleep, the world won’t explode. Tomorrow night, you will probably sleep. By taking the stress out of the situation you may feel so relaxed, that you might even drop off.”

Just in time to see that new, lovely, summer dawn.

Miranda Levy is the author of ‘The Insomnia Diaries: How I Learned to Sleep Again’ (Octopus Books)

How to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning like you’ve never seen before

What comes to mind when you think of a fundraising coffee morning? Soggy digestives, weak tea and sitting in a school hall having forced fun? Think again.

Macmillan Cancer Support are celebrating 35 years of the iconic Coffee Morning fundraiser, and we’re here to help you give your next Coffee Morning a glow-up. Behind the fun, Coffee Mornings help raise vital funds for people facing one of the toughest challenges of their lives.

Almost one in two people in the UK will get cancer in their lifetime, and no two experiences are the same. Where you live, who you are, or whether you have another health condition can all affect the care you receive – and that’s not fair. Macmillan is working to change that, doing whatever it takes to make sure everyone gets the best possible care, whoever and wherever they are.

So while tasty treats and fundraising fun of course get to stay, we’re leveling up the atmosphere with fresh ideas to keep everyone entertained.

Want to be a Coffee Morning Host?

Best of all, these new ways of raising vital funds don’t have to be expensive. In fact, they might even save you a bit of time, wardrobe space and money. Here’s how to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning like you’ve never seen before…

Organise a ‘style swap shop’

Clear out your wardrobe, raise money and bring your community together all at the same time by organising a ‘style swap shop’ – with all your finest, unworn or unwanted clothes and accessories.

Pack up the majestic hats you bought for a wedding but only wore once, the satin gloves that make you feel like Audrey Hepburn but don’t go with anything you own, or maybe that lace vintage dress your aunty wore to Glastonbury in the 70s, which now lives in an unexplored drawer in your bedroom.

Fill up a bag with your best cast-offs and get your friends, family and neighbours to do the same. Everyone pays £5 entry to the ‘style swap shop’ and then you all get to browse through each other’s preloved treasures – grabbing what takes your fancy.

One person’s hand-me-down is another person’s new look – so elbows at the ready! Want to raise extra cash? Add a £1-£2 price tag on each item that’s been donated.

Strut your stuff at a cake walk

We know that staying healthy and being physically active can reduce the risk of cancer, so why not combine the classic Coffee Morning with a walk around the block? Creative costumes, silly hats and streamers at the ready as we leave behind the school hall and instead take our cakes and cookies for a little jaunt to stretch our legs.

Up the fun, and the stakes, by upgrading from a cake walk to a cake race – the bigger and messier the dessert, the better!  And get the kids involved in the baking and racing too.

Or if you want to keep it indoors, turn your catwalk into a cake walk and give your best strut with your favourite pudding in hand. It’s giving egg and spoon race, jelly wobbling on a plate and doubling over with laughter as you sashay along clutching a platter filled with your finest roulade.

Dance away the morning at a sober rave

Why sit or stand when you can dance? Sober raves are all the rage – and ideal for a morning of fun with friends, family and neighbours. There’s no hangover, no late night and the kids can join in too – so, no need for a babysitter.

Grab your glow sticks for a Coffee Morning like no other, and you can still eat cake and have a brew or a cold drink. It’s a club night where nobody has to worry about the morning-after-the-night-before! You can host it in any hall, all you need is music and a disco ball.

You might feel silly at first, but soon you’ll be grinning with joy as dancing is proven to release endorphins (natural painkillers and mood boosters) as well as reducing stress and keeping you fit. Now, who does a good Big fish, little fish, cardboard box?

Run an Is it cake? competition

If you haven’t seen the Netflix hit Is it cake? – an American game show-style cooking competition, you’re missing a treat. Contestants compete to both identify and recreate their best version of everyday items – in cake form.

That could be fire hoses made from vanilla sponge and icing, kitchen utensils that cut open to reveal red velvet cake, replica designer handbags that are actually edible, and even other food items such as burgers, which are of course, cake.

Up the baking ante by running your own cake lookalike competition inspired by the show. The best thing about it is that even if your cake looks like a pair of stinky old sports shoes, it’ll still taste great!

Whether you’re swapping styles, raving sober or sculpting a sponge handbag, every slice of fun helps Macmillan Cancer Support do whatever it takes to help everyone living with cancer.

Signing up to host your own Macmillan Coffee Morning this year couldn’t be easier! Find out more today on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

Dad jumps off Disney cruise ship to save daughter after she fell over

A hero dad jumped off a Disney Cruise ship when his daughter fell overboard Sunday — successfully grabbing onto her and treading water before the two were eventually pulled to safety.

The $900 million Disney Dream was returning to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, following a four-night cruise in the Bahamas when the emergency code “Mr. M.O.B.,” meaning man overboard, rang out over the ship’s intercom, USA Today reported.

“The Crew aboard the Disney Dream swiftly rescued two guests from the water,” a Disney Cruise Line spokesperson said. “We commend our Crew Members for their exceptional skills and prompt actions, which ensured the safe return of both guests to the ship within minutes. We are committed to the safety and well-being of our guests, and this incident highlights the effectiveness of our safety protocols.”

The girl reportedly fell overboard from the fourth deck, which features a walking track. It was not immediately clear what caused her to fall, but there is a tall plexiglass safety barrier on the ship, according to the report. The girl’s age was not immediately known.

Passengers aboard the ship shared their accounts of the miraculous save on social media, including footage of the rescue crews rushing out to save the pair.

Videos shared on TikTok showed passengers rushing to the vessel’s railings and gasping in shock after realizing a child had gone overboard.

As passengers reacted, rescue crews were quickly lowered into the ocean in a bright yellow boat before jetting off to the pair, who were treading in water for about 25 minutes, witnesses said.

Fellow passengers then began to clap and cheer as the rescue teams threw out a rope for the pair to grab onto and safely pulled them onto the jetty.

The footage then shows the small boat returning to the ship, with the dad and daughter appearing to be soaked and in complete shock.

Social media users also shared their accounts of the shocking save, including passenger Kevin Futura, who wrote on Facebook, “A girl fell overboard from the 4th deck & her dad went in after her … Thankfully the DCL rescue team was on it immediately and both were saved!”

Another passenger, Dewayne Smith, wrote on Facebook, “A little girl fell overboard and her dad jumped overboard to try and save her. Man overboard calls went up immediately.”

“The Disney crew went into action ASAP. Lots of praying folks on this ship! Both the little girl and dad were both successfully rescued.”

Video shared by Smith showed the yellow rescue boat quickly bobbing through the waters to reach the father and daughter as horrifying onlookers watched from on top of the ship.

Cruise officials have not shared any additional information about the passengers who went overboard.

Similar to other major cruise operators, Disney ships feature overboard detection systems that alert the crew in the case of a passenger going overboard.

How students must adapt if a third of entry-level jobs are going to AI

The rituals unfold as they always have: hushed shuffling inside a stuffy exam hall, nervous energy silently bouncing off the walls; an impossibly loud clock, counting down to impending doom. This week, up and down the country, rows upon rows of students will sit hunched over their desks clutching “lucky” pens; praying that their hard work has been worth it. It is, of course, A-level season, which, done right, is supposedly the coveted, golden road to university, graduate jobs, money and a life lived right.

Yet, this year feels a little different.

Beyond the double doors of the sports hall, the world is changing at a rapid pace. While the next generation of workers study harder than ever, the qualifications they’ve been told hold the key to the next important step are suddenly in question: artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t only analysing data and producing basic graphic design, but diagnosing illnesses and drafting legal documents, too; today’s path, no matter how well they score, is muddied. This is a youth whose strange paradox means that the entry jobs and world they’re preparing for may no longer exist by the time they reach it.

For graduates, recent and future, it’s not exactly optimistic. There’s barely a corner of the job market left unaffected, and now even industries that were once considered safe – in medicine, or law, for example – are beginning to utilise AI and automation at the expense of human work.

This week, Business Insider reported new data that confirms that companies are hiring less, having found that, over the last three years, “the share of AI-doable tasks in online job postings has declined by 19 per cent”. The report continued to say that further analysis led to a “startling conclusion: the vast majority of the drop took place because companies are hiring fewer people in roles that AI can do” – and they are hitting junior, entry-level roles first.

This month, the first law firm providing legal services via AI was approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. While many firms are using AI to support and deliver a range of back-office and public-facing services, Garfield.Law Ltd will be the first purely AI-based company.

It is announcements like this that are causing enormous worry for a generation who are looking to get their first foot on a career ladder. “It means that the graduate job market has changed dramatically, in a very short period of time,” a careers consultant at a leading London university tells me. “AI is causing a huge amount of uncertainty and a lack of confidence, both on the side of the employers and the students and graduates.”

Where are you supposed to begin now, then? How do you navigate getting that first foot on the career ladder once the (promised) stepping stone has been whipped away?

“Even people who work in affected industries themselves aren’t sure,” she adds. “They know what the pipeline was back in their day, but now they really don’t know how this is all going to affect recruitment and, ultimately, career trajectories and the traditional ladder.”

We all know that AI is fundamentally warping the workplace as we know it – what experts are trying to work out now is exactly how, and how fast. According to reports from PwC, McKinsey, and the World Economic Forum, around 60 per cent of current jobs will require “significant adaptation due to AI” over the next 10-30 years or so; by then, AI will simply be another integrated part of our day jobs. Goldman Sachs goes one further: by 2045, their research finds, up to 50 per cent of jobs could be fully automated, and estimates that 300 million jobs will be affected by AI. Not even that A* in history can compete.

But while these projections feel far into the future, recent reports show that AI is already having a significant impact today. Already, there are a lot fewer opportunities, and according to the Financial Times, UK graduate job listings dropped from 7,000 in 2023 to 5,800 in 2024. That’s a drop of 17 per cent.

This means those on the market are more competitive than ever. In 2024, employers received an average of 140 applications per graduate vacancy, according to a report from Times Higher Education; a 59 per cent increase from the previous year and the highest number recorded since 1991.

“The anxiety in this cohort of students is off the scale,” explains futurist, author and Gen Z and Gen A expert Chloe Combi. “But this situation has revitalised a conversation about which subjects are necessary. Every kid that’s gone through exams and university in the last decade has been told ‘learn to code’, over and over again. But rapid progress suggests some of those high-employment computer science degrees might even become obsolete. In so many cases, there’s an AI programme that can do that in a micro proportion of the time it would take a human to do the jobs these kids have been told to aim for. It’s awful – and it’s not like they’ve been given or followed the wrong advice, far from it. They’ve just been given advice that’s become outdated in the blink of an eye.”

With white-collar, middle-class jobs now under more threat than ever, many are turning to more traditional blue-collar work – becoming an electrician, plumber, healthcare worker or hairdresser – sparking conversations about the power of the working class being revalued under this new industrial revolution.

Outside of trades, the advice is tentative but also reevaluates what is valuable. Investing in skills like critical thinking, strategic creativity, or very human traits like storytelling, negotiation and persuasion may now prove more lucrative than anything more traditional.

The expert itself, ChatGPT.com, has some ideas, too. “As AI like me becomes more integrated into the workplace, students need to adapt intelligently,” the tool explains, in its ever-creepy self-aware tone. “Don’t only aim for a specific job title – those may not exist in a few years,” is its first point. “Instead, study fields that build foundational thinking.”

Next, it advises to “combine technical and human insight” by, for example, taking a degree that blends fields, like philosophy and AI ethics, or computer science and psychology. Finally, back to the same point – don’t specialise in your career if you can help it; “be adaptable, not replaceable”, it warns, quite bleakly, and “learn how to work with AI, not compete against it”.

That black hole of uncertainty is only expanding.

“In the next 10 years, there’s going to be a very necessary transformation of the university system,” Combi says. “Unless you’re very privileged, I believe, a degree that’s learning for learning’s sake is going to become obsolete. Hopefully, there’ll also be a massive resurgence of apprenticeships, and hands-on apprenticeship degrees, which are a combination of the practical and theoretical.”

To be fair, this has been necessary for a long time. The promise of apprenticeships as a solid alternative to expensive degrees never really followed through – a combination of historical class bias, the stigma of “less prestigious” vocational qualifications and a lack of policy and funding has consistently held the idea back. But that could now all change.

For now, the quotes have been learned and the equations solved; the sleepless nights and frantic panics will soon be over for another year, and another generation of A-level students who lived to tell the tale. But though it might be unpredictable, they have an exciting road ahead: one that could be the perfect challenge for a digitally-fluent and adaptable Covid generation. If anyone can adapt, it will hopefully be them.

It won’t be until after they’ve picked up those long-awaited results in August that the real test will begin: not the one they just sat, but the one no one prepared them for.