Andy Burnham’s aides have been “adamant, consistent and emphatic” that there will be no snap election, said The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman. But the prime minister’s obvious hesitation when asked the question during a recent interview with Laura Kuenssberg “was that of a man calculating the trade-off between survival now and long-term freedom of manoeuvre”.

What did the commentators say?
Burnham spent his first two weeks as PM in a “blitz of hyperactivity”, said The Guardian’s deputy political editor Jessica Elgot. “Bus fares, business rates, energy bill cuts, defence, Ukraine and devolution – he has been everywhere.” Burnham has brought a “renewed sense of optimism” among Labour MPs, buoyed by a series of polls that show the party leading Reform UK for the first time in more than a year.

For all his denials, he “will be furtively wondering whether it might become feasible to go to the country this autumn or early next year”, said The Observer’s associate political editor Andrew Rawnsley. If “the bounce does get bouncier” then “the risk-reward ratio could begin to look more enticing”.

Labour candidate Bev Craig’s emphatic win in the Manchester mayoral election will have given Burnham “more food for thought”, said The Telegraph’s John Power. The PM’s coronation has, “for the moment, crushed his left flank”, while the right is now “electorally split between the Conservatives and Reform”. 

The “strategic logic” behind calling an early election “seems unassailable if the polls continue to trend up”. With no mandate and a reality-checking Budget due at the end of October, Burnham’s “political strategy of promising everything to everyone has a natural timespan on it”. Labour sources are briefing that if the government consistently wins poll leads of 5% to 8%, Burnham will be advised to “go for it”. 

What next?
If Burnham does call an early election, “he’ll be like a gambler sticking all his winnings on one last spin of the roulette wheel”, said Harvey Jones in the Daily Express. “My guess is he’ll bank them instead”, but “if the first big crisis sends his poll rating into freefall, he may wish he’d thrown caution to the wind while Lady Luck was still smiling”.

The next major battle between Israel and Palestine might be fought not on the ground but below it. Israel is attempting to seize the land around archaeological sites throughout the West Bank, in what Palestinian authorities have condemned as illegal steps toward de facto annexation. Israel’s parliament has proposed a bill to create a new Israeli body in the West Bank that would “have the power to conduct excavations, declare sites, expropriate lands and more”, said Haaretz.

What sites are affected?
Israel is “undertaking a major drive to develop and expand archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank”, said The Forward. The two most prominent are Sebastia, a small town near the West Bank city of Nablus, and Jericho, another West Bank city that is home to the ancient Hasmonean Palaces.

Sebastia is “one of the most layered archaeological sites in the Middle East”, said CNN. Its history “goes back at least 3,000 years” to when it was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Sebastia’s archaeological mound “lies in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli civil and security control according to the Oslo Accords”, while the adjacent town is in “Area B, under mixed Palestinian-Israeli jurisdiction”.

What is Israel’s motivation?
Israeli authorities believe it is “incumbent upon Jewish citizens to connect to their history and heritage”, said The Forward, and to protect it. Officials claim the Hasmonean Palaces site is under “deliberate and systematic destruction by the Palestinian Authority” as part of a broader “bid to erase evidence of Jewish ties to the land”.

How has Palestine responded?
Palestinian and Israeli rights groups say the development of West Bank archaeological sites is “tantamount to annexation of occupied land and would expand Jewish settlements”, said Reuters. At the urging of Palestinian officials, Unesco recently designated Sebastia a full World Heritage site, in a bid to “prevent Israel extending ​its control at the ancient village”.

The Israeli government, however, remains steadfast. “The area is Israeli territory,” Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told CNN. “It belongs to the Jewish people.”

Vasilina Khandoshka competes in the women’s solo technical artistic swimming final at the European Aquatics Championship in Paris. The Belarusian athlete scooped the silver medal, a day after winning the gold in the women’s solo free routine event.

Julien de Rosa / AFP / Getty Images 

If you’ve watched Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” and feel inspired to embark on an epic journey of your own, consider visiting these stunning locations. The director shot in six countries to bring Odysseus’ voyage to life, from the sand dunes of Morocco to the rugged cliffs of Scotland.

Italy 
Odysseus’ journey began on his island home of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea. Instead of filming there, Nolan chose to shoot the scenes on Favignana, off the coast of Sicily. Known as the “butterfly island” because of its shape, Favignana is an “easy” ferry ride from Sicily’s Trapani port, said Wanderlust.  The 15th-century “ruined fortress” (pictured above) on the top of the hill “made for the perfect stand-in” for Odysseus’ palace.

Greece 
If you’re reliving a Greek epic, a visit to Greece is a must. Head to Nestor’s Cave in the Peloponnese region, where the Cyclops sequence was filmed. The crew had to haul a 60ft “animatronic monster” up to the cave every day because of Nolan’s “aversion” to using green screen, said Wanderlust. The homecoming of King Agamemnon was filmed in areas outside Messenia and near Athens where the windiness “worked well” with all the flags and the banners in the sequence, production designer Ruth De Jong told Condé Nast Traveller.

Morocco 
Next stop is the “undulating sand dunes” and “mud-brick buildings” of Morocco, said British Vogue. The country brought an “authentically ancient atmosphere” to the film, with the Unesco-listed village of Aït Benhaddou used as the city of Troy. The group of “earthen buildings surrounded by high walls” has been a “desirable” filming location for many other historical blockbusters including “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Scotland
The “craggy rocks” and verdant cliffside just outside Cullen in the Highlands were the perfect place for the witch Circe’s home, De Jong told Condé Nast Traveller. And the “atmospheric ruins” of Findlater Castle by Moray Firth, said Wanderlust, became the backdrop for one of the “most unnerving scenes” of the film when Circe “turns Odysseus’ crew into gluttonous pigs”.

In the silence, you can hear society crumble
James Marriott in The Times
“Amid the din of modern cities there is an eerie void of silence,” writes James Marriott. Recent research suggests the number of words spoken by the average person declined from 16,632 in 2005 to 11,900 in 2019. As those “missing words” disappear into “earbuds and screens”, casual but valuable “human interactions are being stripped out of society”. I fear that “a country that does not mingle will find itself more easily divided”.

The party is over for Nigel Farage. Will anyone dare tell him?
Sean O’Grady in The Independent
“Not so long ago”, Nigel Farage looked set to become our next prime minister, writes Sean O’Grady. Now, “damaged by the maelstrom of allegations about him and money”, the Reform leader “is turning into an electoral liability” who “appears so toxic that he virtually forces people to set aside their differences and to vote tactically” against his party. Yet Farage “retains cult leader status” within Reform, so he will only go when “he himself chooses to do so”.

With Russia at the door and the US backing away, Europe has to build its own ‘way of war’
Nathalie Tocci in The Guardian
“Russia’s imperial ambitions start with Ukraine, but they don’t end there,” writes international relations expert Nathalie Tocci. Europe cannot rule out a “kinetic war to defend ourselves against Moscow in the coming months”, and we “are waking up to the reality” that “the US may not be there” for us. That “would instantly break Nato”, so as a “critical insurance policy”, we need to make new “coalitions of the willing” that bypass Washington.