In the first of a two-part profile, Daniel Boffey traces the incoming PM’s early forays into politics and his rise to prominence – ultimately leading to him leaving London for Manchester

Andy Burnham had emerged victorious, but niggling doubts remained about his mandate. It was the summer of 1987 and the 17-year-old had represented Labour in a school hustings as Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock were battling it out in that year’s general election.

“Andy was standing against another guy, a really nice guy who was the Conservative candidate,” said Steve Harrington, a former English teacher at St Aelred’s Catholic high school, in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside. “Andy gave a speech, which was excellent, then the other guy came on to make his speech and Andy’s fans – unbeknown to Andy – snatched the plug out of the microphone. So they couldn’t hear what he was saying. Andy won by a landslide. Having said that, he probably would have anyway, as it was a heavily Labour area … But he was innocent, he hadn’t been involved in [the prank] and wouldn’t have been.”

As Hairspray and his ‘angriest movie’ Desperate Living are rereleased, the ‘Pope of Trash’ reflects on dead dogs, dirty rats, ‘that lunatic RFK’ and why there are no novelty dances any more

John Waters still remembers the day his 1988 comedy Hairspray was awarded a PG certificate. “It was horrible,” he says.

Until then, Waters, christened the “Pope of Trash” by the novelist William S Burroughs, was notorious for filming the unfilmable. In Eat Your Makeup, he recreated JFK’s assassination only five years after the event, casting the boisterous Divine in drag as Jackie Kennedy. He invented a blasphemous sex act called the “rosary job” in Multiple Maniacs, which also featured a rape-by-giant-lobster. Most repulsively, in Pink Flamingos, he persuaded Divine to scoff a fresh dog turd on camera.

At the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre broke new ground in selling readers an angry rightwing perspective. Today, most of Fleet Street is run by his disciples

In 1986, 131 years after the Daily Telegraph was founded, its editor, Max Hastings, wrote a memo to senior colleagues about the newspaper’s nature and purpose. “The Daily Telegraph is … ‘nice’,” he said, “in the business of reassurance, of providing confirmation each morning for our readers that their world is looking pretty safe and stable.” He went on: “We are not a strident campaigning newspaper – our business each day is to seek to give our readers the fullest possible information about what is happening in the world, and to suggest what it might mean.”

In practice, under Hastings and many other Telegraph editors, this ethos produced a journalism of pervasive but usually understated conservatism: often focused on the English countryside, the value of hierarchy and tradition, the pleasures of seasonal pursuits such as foxhunting and gardening, the interests of farmers and retired military men – and cautionary tales about more reckless lives gone wrong, often presented through enjoyably detailed reports from the divorce courts. The Torygraph, as many non-readers called it, could be inward-looking and “numbingly dull”, says Geoffrey Wheatcroft, the historian of British conservatism, but it was “thoroughly respectable”. Many of its most renowned figures, such as Hastings’s predecessor as editor, Bill Deedes, were “mildness itself”.

Passenger Ljubisa Karović was nearly sucked out of his seat when Boeing 737-800’s window blew out on flight from Greece

For nervous flyers, it sounds like the stuff of nightmares; for most, only contemplated in an action movie. But last week, a passenger really was nearly sucked out through a broken aircraft window mid-flight.

Ljubisa Karović was on a Ryanair-Air Malta flight leaving Thessaloniki in Greece when the adjacent window blew out of the Boeing 737-800, pulling his head and shoulders out of the plane. His wife and fellow passengers helped to keep him inside.

Psychologist Candice Odgers has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years. She fears the current debate around smartphones obscures some of the biggest issues facing teenagers – from the impact of Covid to the health of their adult caregivers

The quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says.

Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt: “That would be crazy, right? It would be unfair.” But she is on a drive to puncture the prevailing narrative that the best way to address online harms is a social media ban for teenagers.

When an investment fund bought their building, the residents of Tribulete 7 protested in the only way they knew how – through radical creativity

Spain’s housing crisis finally came for the tenants of Madrid’s Calle Tribulete 7 when their block was sold to an investment fund. Feeling pressured to leave by rent increases and aggressive construction works that flooded some apartments, they did everything they were supposed to do: organise meetings, contact the tenants’ union and find a lawyer. They also protested, spoke to journalists and created an Instagram account to spread the word. But they also did something I’d never seen before.

They opened up their homes to the public and invited musicians to play inside, in the very flats and shops that were suddenly at risk. A month later they flipped this concept on its head and took their furniture out on to the street. There the tenants cooked, knitted, played chess in their dressing gowns, worked from home and bobbed in their armchairs to a local band playing a brass version of Freed from Desire. It was a spectacular theatrical performance of everyday existence, but also a fight for their lives.

⚽ Latest news in aftermath from dramatic day in Atlanta
⚽ Tuchel takes blame | Player guide | Golden Boot | Mail us

Thomas Tuchel had already shown this week he’s not someone who is prone to mere pleasantries after a game. The head coach shouldered the blame for England becoming too passive after taking the lead against Argentina, but at the same time said he had “no regrets”.

I don’t believe so much in an English thing and a curse or whatever. It’s repeating itself in different moments. It’s different coaches, different players, different situations.

What cost us today was that we were not active enough in any structure. I can understand these discussions are out there and of course a million coaches after the game know it better. You can discuss this with a million coaches. I have to make a decision on the pitch. It’s how I analyse the match and I take the responsibility.

Green leader says expected appointment shows new PM ‘won’t challenge the power of the bankers, or tax their wealth’

Here is some reaction from journalists and commentators to the news that Shabana Mahmood is now expected to be Andy Burnham’s chancellor.

From Jennifer Williams, the FT’s Northern England correspondent

It seems to me there are a few reasons Burnham might choose Mahmood over Miliband despite bluesky thinking it’s outrageous. Many of them are not-ed reasons but not all

Ed basically has the potential to be too powerful. His own agenda (people don’t fundamentally change) coupled with a known ability to drive it through Whitehall, would be a rival for the centre of gravity, when the PM is still trying to set his own after a decade away

Secondly I have never ever thought the words “Ed Miliband” in well over a decade of coveting English devolution, despite him having a northern seat. That feels telling

Yes there’s the obvious immediate warring Labour factions going on, good to see that didn’t wait for Monday. But I wouldn’t really put Andy and Ed in the same bracket politically anyway. “Soft left” is unhelpfully vague and AB is actually quite hard to categorise, not least bc he moves

I think Shabana and Andy are closer than ppl might think in outlook. On immigration he’s not that fluffy - and his latest seat (almost the same as the old one) carries the same imperative. Where he would balk I think is if it feels cruel to him: some of the Morgan era rhetoric feels unlikely

I saw a clumsy quote from a Labour source earlier about Ed being London liberal and some of Andy’s people being working class northerners. These are distinctions that wind people up. But there is, from where I’m sitting, a difference in how these people view things, their electorates for one!

Finally, the markets. But if that was AB’s primary concern - ie if he was that worried Ed would freak them out - it may not have taken this long to reach a decision, assuming the decisions stands into Monday

NB I know Ed’s electorate is in Doncaster. I’m not sure it’s particularly reflected in his outlook, but it is in AB’s.

Where to even begin with these Labour briefings!

1) Louise Haigh is not working class.

What to expect from a Shabana Mahmood chancellorship?

She’s a migration hardliner and social conservative, who rejected Corbyn’s hard-left economic agenda in 2015

If Shabana Mahmood is chancellor it’ll end in tears…quickly. Through no fault of her own she’s given little thought to economic policy and yet likes to make a splash as a minister. There will be no rapport with Andy Burnham. The media and market will approve..until they turn.

I remain unconvinced that someone who has expressed no previous interest in fiscal policy, has no obvious economic policy expertise and whose views on the topic are unknown is an ideal candidate for Chancellor.

FWIW:

Miliband - obviously qualified. Effective minister. Brings political baggage. Probably (and somewhat unfairly) gets a negative market reaction.

The flip side of a CHX not known to have especially strong views on economic policy is a bigger role and say for a beefed up Number Ten. Suspect Number Ten North, MHCLG, DBT, Transport, etc will have a larger role.

You absolutely do not need any formal training in economics to be a successful chancellor.

(And I’d add - the same is true of central bankers).

We don’t know what the cabinet will be yet, but the mood music is ominous.

A Labour Party subservient to the City of London and harking back to the Blair years would be catastrophic for this country.

“City relieved” = Burnham’s government won’t challenge the power of the bankers, or tax their wealth.

Who is choosing our politicians - the people or the banking sector?

Arrival of outgoing British leader in Ukraine comes as Zelenskyy faces outrage after removing Mykhailo Fedorov

Koretskyi’s appointment comes just as Britain’s Starmer is meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Here are first pictures from their first official engagements this morning:

Whistleblower suggests internal security services deployed spyware from 2017 against key domestic and foreign targets

A former member of Morocco’s domestic intelligence service has helped to provide an unprecedented insight into how the north African state used hacking software – including Pegasus spyware – to target journalists, human rights defenders, French politicians and Spanish cabinet ministers and police officers.

Pegasus, which is manufactured by the Israel-based NSO Group, allows its operator to access everything on a target’s mobile phone, including emails, text messages and photographs. It can also activate the phone’s recorder and camera, turning it into a listening device.