Football is truly a family affair for Hednesford Town’s Hazzana Parnell and her fellow forward Remaya Osbourne

“As a mother you try to give your child the best you can,” says the Hednesford Town forward Hazzana Parnell before the tier five side’s Women’s FA Cup second-round match against fourth-tier Sporting Khalsa on Sunday. “The ball will be on the line and I’ll lay it back for her, as if saying: ‘Go on, you have it.’”

This isn’t like letting your kid beat you at Uno, or half-hearted efforts to save the ball when standing in goal at the local park. This is a mother, Parnell, 38, and her daughter, 16-year-old Remaya Osbourne, playing on the same team in the FA Cup, fulfilling a dream many footballers probably have when they hold their newborn in their arms, and that so few have achieved, in men’s and women’s football.

Fans of The Great and Mary & George will love The Serpent Queen. Plus: it’s the Blackpool bonanza on Strictly! Here’s what to watch this evening

10.05pm, Channel 4

He was a Conservative party big-hitter who wrote speeches for David Cameron and worked with Boris Johnson before he suddenly jumped ship. He talks family, flags and why Nigel Farage is ‘top dog’

What I struggle to understand, I say to Danny Kruger in his office at Reform UK HQ, is why a serious Conservative, with a glittering future like yours, would defect to a party led by Nigel Farage? Indeed, the defection of Kruger, a heavy-weight on the Conservative right who served on the front bench and been tipped as a possible future leader, was seen as a major coup for Reform, catching commentators off-guard. Unlike previous deserters – Andrea Jenkyns, Jake Berry, Nadine Dorries – he was a sitting MP in a safe Tory seat. Plus, he was untarnished by the boisterous excesses of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

But we’ve been around the houses a few times on this. He’s talked about his philosophy (Burkean), his Christianity (evangelical), thrown out words like “family”, “community”, “nation”. He’s asserted (confusingly) that the Tories are “over” but “not dead”, that politics is mostly “gut feeling … mostly vibes – isn’t it?” Now, after a pause, Kruger sits back and fixes me with a blue-eyed grin: “Humans are pack animals,” he says. “You need to know who top dog is, otherwise the other dogs fight each other. That’s what we get in Tory and Labour. Because there’s a weakness at the top.”

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the past seven days

Henry, 28, a student, meets Sarah, 30, an operations manager

What were you hoping for?
A fun, easy-going evening with some yummy grub.

From the outside, the run-up to Rachel Reeves’s announcement has looked chaotic, and many see the future of the chancellor and PM in the balance

Every budget could be described, to a greater or lesser extent, as a high-stakes moment. Things can easily go badly wrong, as Gordon Brown discovered when he abolished the 10p tax rate in 2007 , or George Osborne when his 2012 ‘omnishambles’ budget fell apart over pasties, and especially Kwasi Kwarteng, whose disastrous mini-budget of 2022 sent the Conservatives spiralling towards electoral defeat.

Rachel Reeves appears to have come perilously close to the turmoil of previous budgets, and that’s before she has even delivered it.

Need for new road taxes is clear – but there are concerns that pricing plan could stall transition away from petrol

Three pence: a small charge per mile for an electric vehicle, but a giant conceptual leap for Britain.

Chancellors of the exchequer have long resisted any form of road pricing as politically toxic. That may be about to change next week: Rachel Reeves, perhaps inured to being pilloried for any money-raising proposal, is expected to introduce a charge explicitly linked to how far EVs drive.

A comforting and filling mix of Korean and Italian flavours and textures that’s ideal for weeknight dinner

• Share your questions for Meera Sodha, Tim Dowling and Stuart Heritage for a special Guardian Live event on Wednesday 26 November.

I am a ragu-fancier and akheema fanatic. Unlike with most foods, however, it doesn’t do to rationalise this love for ragu, because it is a mash of things chopped up so small that they all lose their texture. This might sound a bit woo-woo, but the joy of ragu comes from feeling your way through it, from the chopping and standing with your thoughts, to stirring a bubbling pot and the smell creeping under the door. A ragu isn’t just a ragu, it’s a coming-together of good things: thoughts, feelings, ingredients, time and effort.

Join Meera Sodha at a special event celebrating the best of Guardian culture on Wednesday 26 November, hosted by Nish Kumar and alongside writers Stuart Heritage and Tim Dowling , with Georgina Lawton hosting You Be The Judge live. Live in London or via livestream, book tickets here .

Anti-AI and pro-beauty, Leo XIV has proved an unlikely custodian of culture – and a patron of meaningful work in a world of algorithmic slop

So, who figured that Pope Leo XIV would end up being kind of cool? Not me. Although as a lapsed Catholic I had little stake in the conclave race, I felt that there was something unglamorous, dare I say godless, about a first-ever supreme pontiff born in the US, let alone one hailing from Chicago, the same city as Hugh Hefner, Hillary Clinton and Kanye West. There were greater apprehensions beyond taste, too. Would this finally be the ordination of the reinvigorated Maga movement after the death of the compassionate Pope Francis? When Leo appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica wearing the traditional red mozzetta cape eschewed by his predecessor, it was too easy to jump to conclusions.

By the grace of God, the red mozzetta was a red herring. Very quickly, American conservatives went into meltdown over the pope’s patent anti-Maga leanings and his empathy for migrants and marginalised groups – “anti-Trump, anti-Maga, pro-open borders and a total Marxist,” fumed far-right activist Laura Loomer . That alone has been a relief. But perhaps even more significantly, Leo has demonstrated the benefits an American bishop of Rome can have for the rest of us, Christian, Catholic or otherwise: that is through his exemplary cultural leadership, and close engagement with the arts.

Jason Okundaye is an assistant newsletter editor and writer at the Guardian. He edits The Long Wave newsletter and is the author of Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain