Mark Rowley says ‘cumulative effect of decisions over the last decade’ means Met now in a ‘precarious position’

Good morning. We’re two weeks on from the budget, and from the government’s point of view it seems to have landed quite well. Nothing has unravelled, there have not been any U-turns (yet?) and Labour is confident that it has manoeuvred the Tories into a position where they are attacking the budget tax rises but backing the budget spending measures – an irrational position that is ultimately unsustainable.

But that does not mean budget-related problems for the government have gone away, as a quick look at today’s front pages will show.

A new documentary looks back on the career of a singer whose undeniable talent wasn’t always enough for a limited and image-obsessed industry

Luther Vandross is R&B music’s tragic hero – a soulful soloist who was most popular while singing backup for rockers, a strict disciplinarian who could control everything except his weight, a hopeless romantic who died alone, miserable and far too young.

It’s a sad story revisited in Luther: Never Too Much, a new documentary currently in limited theatrical release that is expected to begin streaming early next year. Directed by the biographical film-maker Dawn Porter, produced by Jamie Foxx and arranged by Robert Glasper, the 160-minute film is a stark reminder of the aversions and prejudices that stalled Vandross’s breakthrough and ultimately broke him.

Massacres at weddings! Naked buttocks! Jude Law! With the final episode of BBC medical drama Doctors airing this week, here are the finest melodramas that didn’t make it

Any chance of a second opinion? Afraid not: it’s terminal. At 2pm on Thursday 14 November, BBC medical soap Doctors airs its last ever episode.

After 24 years of aches, pains and plot twists, Mill Health Centre in the invented West Midlands town of Letherbridge will close its surgery doors for the last time. At least fans – it averages 1.6 million viewers a day – can console themselves with Doctors: A Celebration, which airs directly afterwards.

Mogwai have been making their beautiful noise for nearly three decades, and while this film is sketchy on the details, it truly soars when capturing them live

After nearly 30 years in business and 10 albums in, Glaswegian cacophonists Mogwai have earned the right to an adulatory documentary – and they get one here, directed by former photographer Antony Crook. It has a purist approach, taking cues from the band’s anti-logorrheic approach by offering only a loose biography and comparatively little by way of analysis. All the better to let their majestic instrumental squalls fill the space, unencumbered by too much guiding commentary.

Kicking off just as Mogwai find themselves on the cusp of an unlikely UK No 1 for their last album, As the Love Continues, the film dips back to the late 90s to find them committed early on to meting out exactly the same widescreen guitarscapes. Alex Kapranos, who first put them on stage at the 13th Note Café, speculates that these emotional workouts are expressing what taciturn Glaswegian men usually don’t. Remembering getting the band to record a version of Jewish prayer Avinu Malkeinu (the 2001 single My Father My King), producer Arthur Baker inadvertently puts a finger on the religious-ecstatic nature of Mogwai live. But it’s writer Ian Rankin who identifies the band’s loud/soft dynamics as belonging to a tradition of “ Scottish antisyzygy ”.

• Updates from the crunch match at AAMI Park
• Kick-off time in Melbourne is 8:10pm AEDT
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Saudi Arabia present a familiar opponent, who had the better of the Socceroos in qualifying for the previous World Cup under French coach Hervé Renard. Much has changed since then, and Jack Snape was on the ground as Australia’s coach Tony Popovic backed his side to play with restored confidence.

“We feel it’s in our hands here at our home stadium and our crowd, the players look calm and confident, and I want to see that in their performance,” Popovic said.

Mancini walks away from Saudi Arabia considerably richer than when he arrived 14 months earlier, but few would say that the national team is any better off.

Shares in fashion brand jump as ‘urgent’ cost-cutting programme announced following half-year losses

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Burberry has unveiled a £40m cost-cutting programme as its new chief executive pledged to “stabilise the business” with a turnaround plan aimed at reviving the fortunes of the ailing British luxury fashion brand.

Joshua Schulman, the former Coach boss who replaced his ousted predecessor, Jonathan Akeroyd, in July , said the company was “acting with urgency” after straying too far from its roots of “timeless core collections” and outerwear, including trench coats and scarves with its distinctive Burberry check.

The quest for revenue is the defining struggle of modern football, and many fans have correctly come to see higher revenue as the surest route to on-field glory

In the grand churn of the money machine that is modern football, it ranks as a fairly small deal. But when Liverpool recently announced they will earn more than £60m ($76.3m) a year from a new kit deal with Adidas starting next season, the reaction from the club’s supporters across social media said a lot about the nature of modern fandom. Apart from the habitual grumbles about what this might mean for the design of the team’s kit, fans mostly seemed to respond to the announcement in one of two ways: why doesn’t the new deal bring the club into line with the £90m ($114.3m) that Manchester United receives from Adidas for a comparable arrangement? And more pressingly: what kind of squad investment can an extra few million pounds a year secure? “Enough to pay Virgil,” declared one user on Reddit. “Does that mean we will buy a RB and a 10?” asked another.

These are, of course, completely normal reactions; any other club announcing any kind of commercial “win” would face similar responses from its supporters. But they highlight the extent to which we, as fans, have all become psychologically colonized by the grubby extractionism that defines the modern Premier League, applauding from the sidelines as a new content deal or shirt sponsorship or asset sale or fresh suite of unaffordable subscription packages lurches into view on the club balance sheet. That seat upgrade “layer” and points-based VIP fan tier might be part of the commercial drift that’s making football less affordable, carrying it ever further from the communities it claims to represent, but if they nab us a quality back-up keeper to put pressure on that number one chronically fumbling under the high ball? Well, maybe they’re not so bad after all.

Asset manager Oaktree out of running as backer but businessman has ‘high confidence’ he will get finance

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The British owner of the New York Sun has said his £550m offer to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph is still on track, despite a big potential backer not joining the bid.

Dovid Efune entered exclusive talks to buy the Telegraph titles last month after submitting the highest bid in the second round of the auction for the titles.

Where’s the lonely man on the moon? Where’s the plaintive piano ballad sung by a wan Victorian girl? This year’s John Lewis ad is packed with unforgivable sins

Well, this is an outrage. There are just some things you shouldn’t mess with. Roast dinners. The national anthem. The John Lewis Christmas advert.

You see, the John Lewis Christmas advert has long operated on a perfect formula. Every November we are treated to a sumptuous mini-movie, the components of which have long since lapsed into tradition. It must be festive. It must have a slowed down piano ballad cover version of a nostalgic pop song. It must also be unfathomably sad, either because it’s about an old man dying of loneliness on the moon (2015) or a Christmas tree being banished to the garden because it’s a bit too excitable (2023).