In the headlines

The pound fell and government borrowing costs jumped to 2008-era highs after Andy Burnham announced his intention to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. The Greater Manchester mayor will first have to win a by-election in Makerfield after its MP, Josh Simons, resigned to make way for him – last week, however, Reform UK swept the board in the area’s local council elections. Zack Polanski has admitted he did not vote in last week’s local elections. The Green Party leader said he “fell short of time” to update his address on the electoral register after moving into rented accommodation. Party officials say a previous suggestion that he had used a postal vote in Hackney was a “miscommunication”. The first designated bathing area on the River Thames in London opened this morning. The Thames at Ham in south-west London, which is one of 13 new monitored swimming areas across England, will have its water tested once a week until the end of September to ensure it meets hygiene levels.

The Thames at Ham: lovely spot for a dip. Richard Baker/Getty

Comment

Starmer and Burnham in 2024. Ian Vogler/WPA Pool/Getty

A “leadership swaperoo” won’t fix anything

Here’s a question for those scrambling to replace Keir Starmer, says Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian: if the Labour Party didn’t exist, “would you invent it”? Who would lack a voice, what opportunities would be missed if there simply wasn’t a Labour Party at all? Labour candidates still pretend to represent the huddled masses, but today’s poor vote Reform or Green, while it’s only the financially secure who are likely to opt for the old established parties. The point of Labour used to be that it was the one left-wing party that could win votes, but last week’s local elections mulched that myth. So what’s it for? The need for Labour is becoming one of those “self-evident truths” that actually aren’t.

The most important question now, says Douglas Murray in The Spectator, is whether a quick leadership “swaperoo” would actually fix anything. The commentating class have “whipped themselves” into a familiar frenzy that will lead, inexorably, to Starmer stepping down, but the problems we have far outstrip the meagre talents of anyone in the Labour party, including the “King over the Irwell, Andy Burnham”. We spend beyond our means and borrow more than we can afford. A tiny number of medium and high-earning taxpayers are expected to endlessly foot the bill for the large indigent class and those who have just arrived with their hands out. We have a vastly expensive health service which is the “envy of the Third World” but not of anybody who actually has to use it; an economy that has been flatlining; and a rising left who have decided the solution is to attack the few among us who are successful. So my own advice to the Labour Party is this: “Hang on, Sir Keir.” Things can always get worse.

🙈🙊 The problem for Prime Minister Starmer is that if he sees off the leadership challenge he will end up even weaker than the Prime Minister Starmer who “precipitated that challenge in the first place”, says James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph. The tweets and open letters from unhappy Labour MPs branding him “a duffer” would still be there in the public domain and he would be subject to daily mockery. “Political authority is like virginity; once lost, it is gone forever.”

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On the money

This year’s Sunday Times Rich List shows that the UK’s 350 most affluent individuals and families share a combined £784bn – a 1.4% rise on last year and equivalent to a quarter of the country’s GDP. Britain has 157 billionaires, including the newly promoted David and Victoria Beckham (£1.1bn). Debuting on the list are Liam and Noel Gallagher (£375m), following the success of their Oasis comeback tour, and Emily Eavis and her family (£400m), who run Glastonbury Festival. The biggest loser was James Dyson, who lost £8.8bn in the past year. To see the full list, click on the image.

Honestly

Leon Neal/Getty

It’s been a funny week in British politics. Incredibly little has actually happened, but it’s done so at great speed and with an enormous amount of fuss. On Wednesday, Wes Streeting was absolutely full of beans and definitely going to resign and trigger a leadership election. Then, he sort of didn’t. And then he did, but only kind of. And now he says he’s backing Andy Burnham, who isn’t an MP and, given his previous form, is bound to lose his by-election to Reform.

So here we are. 😵‍💫

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