At some point in the <a href="challenge" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="tp-feedurl" title="" >https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/30/palestine-action-co-founder-wins-permission-to-challenge-ban">challenge to the ban on Palestine Action beginning on Wednesday, the co-founder of the direct action group will be asked to leave courtroom five at the Royal Courts of Justice, as will her legal team and most others present. Then the case will continue without them.

When Huda Ammori returns to the room, the special advocate – a security-cleared barrister – who represented her interests in her absence will not be allowed to tell her or her legal team what evidence was presented against Palestine Action. If Ammori asks what allegations were made directly against her, the special advocate must not tell her, even though that means she will have no chance to rebut them.

It’s been a while since I’ve struggled into damp neoprene of a morning. It’s the second day of a wintry weekend in Croyde, north-west Devon; I’m stiff from an hour in the sea the previous afternoon, and the upper part of the super-thick wetsuit won’t budge past my elbows. Together, my husband, Mark, and I jiggle and pull and yank it over my limbs. Finally, five minutes later, I am in a silver-blue sea, entirely empty, save for us. White-crested waves roll in, broiling and foaming, rocketing us forward towards the empty swathe of sand. For once there are no other boarders to dodge, no surfers whisking past: it’s exhilarating, extraordinary and … really rather cold.

Croyde has long been a family favourite, but visiting in November does feel a bit of a gamble. It has a reputation as something of a ghost town in the off-season, with a large number of second homes and rentals that stay dark from October to April. But when an unexpected email landed from Endless Summer Beach House offering a 20% discount on winter stays, it seemed the ideal 30th birthday treat for my nephew, Ben. So, together with his girlfriend, Tasha, best mate, Rob, and my sister Caroline, we decided to take the plunge and find out what off-season Croyde is actually like.

Rachel Reeves has approached this week’s budget like a reluctant swimmer inching into freezing water, trying to ease the unpleasantness by incremental exposure. The chancellor started paddling delicately around the problem of insufficient revenue at the end of the summer. First, she refused to <a href="stand" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="tp-feedurl" title="" >https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/29/rachel-reeves-confirms-she-no-longer-stands-by-pledge-not-to-raise-taxes">stand by former insistence that tax rises in last year’s budget would be the last. “The world has changed,” she said.

Then, earlier this month, she took a bigger stride into the icy waves. There was a speech promising to “do what is necessary” to fund public services and keep borrowing costs down. Downing Street <a href="did" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="tp-feedurl" title="" >https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/04/rachel-reeves-budget-tax-rises-speech-brexit-tariffs">did not discourage speculation that this meant reneging on Labour’s <a href="2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="tp-feedurl" title="" >https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/13/labour-manfesto-promise-no-tax-rises-working-people">2024 manifesto promise not to raise income tax. Too deep! Within 10 days the Treasury had retracted the hint. The manifesto commitment still stood after all. As any cold-water swimmer knows, this aborted plunge and shivering retreat is the worst of all techniques. Nothing prolongs the pain like indecision.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist