Remembering big moments of 2025

From VE Day commemorations to a sporting success story and political intrigue to turmoil at the BBC, we round up the events from the first half of the past year

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Cowboy Carter, having missed out on the prize four times previously.

■ Runcorn and Helsby MP Mike Amesbury was given a 10-week prison sentence for punching a man in the street but had his prison sentence suspended for two years following an appeal. He resigned as an MP in March.

■ European leaders arrived in London for a defence summit on Ukraine during which the Prime Minister pledged to "develop a coalition of the willing". Sir Keir Starmer had welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky to Downing Street the previous day in the wake of President Donald Trump's unprecedented public clash with the Ukrainian president in the White House's Oval Office.

■ Rachel Reeves used her spring statement to announce a series of public spending cuts in order to balance the books without raising taxes.

■ In a long-awaited judgment, the Supreme Court confirmed the terms woman and sex in the 2010 Equality Act "refer to a biological woman and biological sex". Meaning transgender women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces if "proportionate", the ruling was hailed a victory by some campaigners including the Sex Matters group, which had made arguments in the case. LGBT charity Stonewall said there was "deep concern" around the consequences of the judgment, which it described as "incredibly worrying for the trans community".