In his first speech as prime minister in waiting, Andy Burnham promised to achieve “good growth in every postcode” and spearhead the “biggest rebalancing of power” in political history. Keir Starmer announced his own “devolution revolution” in 2024, but Burnham aims to move even more influence away from Westminster towards other regions of the UK to drive more balanced economic growth.

Many English cities and regions already have devolved powers, with Manchester benefitting from some of the “most extensive”, said the BBC. It has significant control over local transport, housing and strategic planning decisions. Northern Ireland and Wales have long had autonomy over health, education and housing policies, among others, with the Senedd also managing local government. In Scotland, Holyrood controls health, education, local government, environment, justice and policing. It can also set some income tax rates and has some control over welfare policy.

What has Burnham proposed?
Burnham said he would create a “No. 10 North”, a new prime minister’s office based in Manchester and acting as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain”. It would support regional powers in delivering a nationwide agenda of re-industrialisation, regeneration, and reform of essential services.

Local authorities would be offered greater control over key utilities such as water, energy and transport. Burnham’s advisers have also “floated ideas” about allowing local authorities to introduce local income tax, and to set and retain business rates, mirroring similar regional policies in Denmark, Sweden and Canada, said Bloomberg.

What is the aim?
The UK is one of the most centralised economies among developed nations. In 2023, the share of UK tax revenue generated at a subnational level – by regions below the central government – was less than 5%, according to the OECD. This compares poorly with France (14%), Spain (24%) and Germany (nearly one third). “Regions tend to do better when they raise more of their own revenue,” said Bloomberg.

If Burnham’s devolution policies prove successful, the “big prize” would be a rise in nationwide GDP. Should the rest of the UK come even halfway to matching London’s productivity levels, the economy would be “at least 4% larger”, according to PwC analysis from 2019.

Xenophobia has long been an issue in South Africa but it has now swelled into a rising tide of anti-migrant protests. Several anti-immigration groups have set their own unofficial deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave South Africa by today. 

‘They must go’
For several months, “anti-immigrant protesters, many brandishing sticks, have been marching through the streets”, said NPR. Many of them chant “abahambe”, a Zulu phrase meaning “they must go”. Some of the protests have turned “violent”, with marchers “targeting foreign nationals” and South Africans “mistaken” for migrants, said News24. The “widely publicised deadline” of 30 June has “heightened tensions”, despite national and local authorities repeatedly warning that  “immigration enforcement remains the responsibility of the state”.

Police units have been deployed to towns and cities holding marches. Several neighbouring nations have begun repatriating their citizens, “while criticising South Africa for what they call a climate of xenophobia”, said The Associated Press.

‘Socioeconomic damage’
Migrants remain a small proportion of the total population: around 4%, according to the most recent census figures from 2022. But the protesters claim the country is “overrun with illegal immigrants who take jobs away from South Africans, ‌use up scarce public services and are responsible for high crime rates”, said Reuters.

Undocumented migrants are actually “highly unlikely to try to use public hospitals or schools, for which they must register, for fear of being found out”, Anthony Kaziboni, a senior researcher at ​the University of Johannesburg, told Reuters. Nonetheless, the “current protests are already causing socioeconomic damage”, said Deutsche Welle.

And some fear more violence is coming. Kaunga Nyirenda, a Malawian gardener in Johannesburg, told CNN about the ultimatum he received from two angry men: “When are you going to leave the country? If you don’t leave now, you are going to leave in a coffin.”

Paraguay captain Gustavo Gomez and his teammates celebrate their win against Germany last night in one of this World Cup’s biggest upsets so far. Germany, who have won the tournament four times, lost to the South American side after a 4-3 penalty shoot-out at Boston Stadium.

Alexander Hassenstein / Getty Images

Scotland has around 800 islands, although only about 100 are inhabited. Most make beautiful spots for full-on nature immersion or a foodie break in a spectacular setting. Here are some of the best...

Islay, Inner Hebrides
The island is known for its distinctive, peaty whiskies, and is home to a “whopping” 14 distilleries, said Robin McKelvie in The Telegraph. One of them, Ardnahoe, is the “stuff of ‘Grand Designs’”, with “floor-to-ceiling windows sweeping out to the water”: stop by for a delicious lunch with whisky pairings. Book a room at the Port Charlotte Hotel, which “feels like living in a postcard”.

Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides
If you’re looking for “blissful isolation” and stunning scenery, make a pilgrimage here, said Ted Thornhill in The Independent. Luskentyre (pictured above) is one of the best beaches in the world: an “outrageous sweep of golden sand” that’s “almost totally deserted”. The rest of the west coast is filled with beautiful sandy stretches that wouldn’t look out of place in the Maldives, while the east coast is a “lunar-like landscape pockmarked with tiny lochs”.

Orkney Mainland
On Mainland, the largest island in the Orkneys, the Heart of Neolithic Orkney network of 5,000-year-old monuments “blows Stonehenge out of the prehistoric water”, said McKelvie in The Telegraph. And there are other “showstopping” landmarks to explore, including Maeshowe, where you can take a guided tour “down the long dark tunnel into the ancient burial cairn illuminated with Viking graffiti”.

Everyday racism is becoming a political norm
Anoosh Chakelian in The New Statesman
With “an old-school West Ham pub, a gay leather fetish bar and a mosque” all within two minutes’ walk, my flat sits at “the perfect confluence of east London communal life”, writes Anoosh Chakelian. But the “normalisation of everyday racism in high politics” poses an increasing threat to such “social harmony”. It’s “perhaps little wonder that attacks on visible minorities in Britain are rising” when “even mainstream politicians” are drifting towards the rhetorical extremism of Reform and Restore.

Why English literature graduates shouldn’t be Prime Minister
James Ford on City A.M.
Andy Burnham looks set to be our first PM with an English literature degree, writes Boris Johnson’s former adviser, James Ford. “Heaven help us all.” I’m sure the MP for Makerfield “knows his Dickens from his Dostoevsky” and “can conjugate a mean verb”, but political leaders should have studied politics. In plumping for Hardy and Plath instead of “Plato, Hobbes and Machiavelli”, Burnham chose “fiction over facts”. That doesn’t “augur well for someone wanting to hold the highest office in the land”.

Credit cards are 60 years old. Have they made us forget the value of money?
Charles Moore in The Telegraph
“The first British credit cards” arrived in 1966, writes Charles Moore. Their transactions since then have “created a much more prosperous country”, and “emancipated women” from being “judged on their husband’s credit” rather than their own. But I “worry a bit” about future generations, raised in a world where “almost everyone taps” at point of sale, and credit is granted “almost automatically”. With no “notes and coins”, money “has no physical reality”, so how will children “understand its limitations”?