Outisde the Drop In bar on Kho Phangan, Thailand, 25 August 2010. Photograph: Photograph for the Guardian by Sean Smith Up and down the beach, young western men are unzipping their shorts and peeing into the Gulf of Thailand. Behind them, under the light of the full moon, thousands more shirtless, shoeless Europeans are massed [...]

Tim Bresnan of England is congratulated by his team mates after taking the wicket of Kamran Akmal. Photograph: Hamish Blair/Getty Images The first Twenty20 between England and Pakistan will start at 2pm. In the meantime, as the betting scandal inevitably casts its shadow over proceedings, the ICC’s spotlight has also fallen on a Sri Lankan [...]

Foreign Secretary William Hague, and his former aide Christopher Myers. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images The stories emerged almost simultaneously. Shortly before the election, the Fleet Street grapevine learned that the New York Times had sent a team of Pulitzer prize-winning reporters to London to produce what it hoped would be the definitive account of the [...]

The five (from left) are Ed Balls, Andy ­Burnham, David ­Miliband, Diane Abbott and Ed Miliband. Photograph: David levene for the Guardian It’s a Thursday afternoon in one of the less splendid corners of York. David Miliband is addressing an audience of 150 or so people in a clump of Victorian buildings called the Priory [...]

Paul Scholes said he thought after a week, a couple of weeks, that ‘maybe I should have gone’. Photograph: Matthew Peters/Man Utd via Getty Images Paul Scholes has revealed he regrets rejecting an England comeback at the World Cup and may have gone to South Africa had Fabio Capello...