Head of Church of England Justin Welby tells Observer that ending policy would lift thousands of UK children out of poverty

• The Observer view: Labour must tackle this scourge
• Gordon Brown: People haven’t woken up to this
• Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has issued an impassioned plea to the government and Keir Starmer’s Labour party to scrap the two-child limit on benefit payments to families, branding it as a cruel and immoral policy that plunges hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

The intervention by the head of the Church of England will place particular pressure on Starmer to make a firm commitment to end the policy, which he has so far refused to do, as he tries to position Labour as being responsible with the public finances.

In latest Opinium poll, only 16% say accepting rightwing Tory MP’s defection was the right move – against 33% who see it as a mistake

More voters believe Keir Starmer was wrong to allow a rightwing Tory MP into Labour than think it was the right move, after anger from within the party’s ranks over the defection.

Natalie Elphicke, the Dover MP, said the Tories had become “a byword for incompetence and division” when she made her shock departure to Labour earlier in May. The party leadership regarded it as a major coup to win the support of the MP on the frontline of the Channel crossings issue that Rishi Sunak has attempted to prioritise. The move came despite concerns among MPs that her views conflict with Labour in a variety of areas.

Benny Gantz’s threat to withdraw his opposition party from coalition calls into question future of government

The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government.

During a press conference on Saturday, Gantz announced that if a plan for postwar governance of the territory is not consolidated and approved by 8 June, his opposition National Unity party will withdraw from the coalition government.

The screams of delight from the departing Emma Hayes in her technical area, the roar and chest-thumping of the injured Sam Kerr sat high above the dugout, and the chaotic flailing arms from the jubilant pocket of fans in blue. Chelsea are Women’s Super League champions for a fifth time in a row having thrashed the FA Cup winners Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Those scenes came within 10 minutes. That’s all it took. In the end it was all a little anticlimactic, Chelsea’s two goals inside those eight minutes enough to give them an almost insurmountable four-goal advantage on goal difference over Manchester City. By half-time, despite City leading 1-0 at Aston Villa, Chelsea had doubled their tally and extended their advantage, going in four up – Sjoeke Nüsken and the utterly unplayable Mayra Ramírez adding to the latter’s opener and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd’s goal. Melanie Leupolz added a fifth after the break as they ran up the numbers and there was an emotional sixth from the departing record goalscorer Fran Kirby, but it wasn’t needed, with City limping to a 2-1 win.

Former chancellor, who was one of those who urged Johnson to go, says Tories should have realised ‘Twitter was not the country’

Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said he and his Conservative colleagues were wrong to force out Boris Johnson as prime minister in 2022.

Johnson resigned after less than three years in No 10 after more than 50 resignations from government of MPs and staff and waves of backbenchers urging him to quit over the handling of the Chris Pincher affair and numerous other scandals. He resigned as an MP a year later.

As the inquiry publishes it final report, the chancellor is under pressure to find £10bn to put right a longstanding injustice

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will come under pressure to stay true to his word and sign off on immediate compensation payments totalling up to £10bn to victims of the contaminated blood scandal when the long-awaited final report on the affair is published on Monday.

The scandal is described as the worst treatment disaster in NHS history, with more than 3,000 people having died as a result of receiving contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. It is estimated that, even today, a person infected during the scandal dies every four days.

Salome Zourabichvili says bill contradicts constitution but ruling party is expected to override her action in coming days

Georgia’s president has vetoed a “foreign agents” bill that has split the country and appealed to the government not to overrule her over a law she said was “Russian in sprit and essence”.

Salome Zourabichvil followed through on her stated intention to use her veto on Saturday although the governing Georgian Dream party has the votes to disregard her intervention.

The cultural sector falls short on other measures of diversity too, with 9o% of workers white, says new report

Six in 10 of all arts and culture workers in the UK now come from middle-class backgrounds, compared with just over 42% of the wider workforce, according to new research.

And while 23% of the UK workforce is from a working-class background, working-class people are underrepresented in every area of arts and culture. They make up 8.4% of those working in film, TV, radio and photography, while in museums, archives and libraries, the proportion is only 5.2%.

But authorities say households in some areas need to continue safety measures amid waterborne parasitic disease

• Anger in Devon as more cases of waterborne disease expected

Thousands of people in Devon can now safely drink their tap water again without having to boil it first, the region’s water supplier has announced after a parasite outbreak.

South West Water said about 14,500 households in the Alston supply area could use their tap water safely, although about 2,500 properties in Hillhead, the upper parts of Brixham and Kingswear should continue to boil their supply before drinking it.

Nelson Shardey, 74, became tearful on hearing of support for effort to gain settled status after 50 years in UK

A retired 74-year-old newsagent who has lived in the UK for nearly 50 years said “tears were running” from his eyes after strangers fundraised more than £30,000 to support his legal fight to remain in the country.

Nelson Shardey, who has been described as a Merseyside “local legend”, is pursuing a legal challenge against the Home Office after he was refused indefinite leave to remain, despite living and working in the UK since 1977.