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Andy Burnham, who was expected to become prime minister on 20 July, took off his tie and put on a dark T-shirt for a speech in which he said he would establish a ‘No. 10 North’ in Manchester as the ‘nerve centre of a rewired Britain’. He promised council houses, welfare reform and ‘good growth in every postcode’ by means of ‘Manchesterism’. He took no questions. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, presented the delayed defence investment plan, and said that spending would rise by £15 billion by 2030. He landed his successor with £4.7 billion of the sum being left unfunded. The Ministry of Defence would also have to find £10.7 billion in efficiency savings in the next four years. Some spending on energy and roads would be sacrificed to meet the funded part of the bill. John Healey, who had resigned as defence secretary in the face of underfunding, commented: ‘Britain will still be spending just 2.7 per cent of GDP in 2030, the date when Nato has warned we could face a Russian attack.’ The news publisher Axel Springer acquired the Telegraph for £575 million.
People who are granted asylum would have to pay back about £10,000 towards their accommodation and support, under the new Immigration and Asylum Bill. From later this year organisations such as ‘trusted universities’ would be allowed to sponsor refugees who applied to come to Britain. Shabir Ahmed, 73, was released after serving 14 years for 30 child rapes, but could not be returned to Pakistan because he arrived in Britain before 1973. In the seven days to 29 June 740 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats. The Liberal Democrats admitted they unlawfully discriminated against the former BBC journalist David Campanale on the basis of his Christian religious beliefs when he was dropped from candidacy in the Sutton and Cheam constituency in 2024. Energy prices rose by 13 per cent. Britain’s National Energy Systems Operator had to pay £1,379 per megawatt hour to import electricity from Europe one evening during last week’s hot spell, at the end of which a new June record of 37.3ºC was set, at Santon Downham, Suffolk. Dame Penelope Keith, the actress, died aged 86.
