“We have to seize back the political megaphone, set the agenda more strongly and show that Labour is making a difference to people’s lives.” In her acceptance speech after winning Labour’s deputy leadership contest, Lucy Powell made it clear where she thinks her party has gone wrong.

After being sacked last month from her cabinet post as Leader of the House of Commons, Powell suggested she had given “feedback people didn’t want to hear”. But the Manchester Central MP now has the power to push Keir Starmer towards her vision of “bold policies, rooted in progressive Labour values”.

What did the commentators say?
Powell had “long been seen as more of a challenger to the current status quo” than her rival for the deputy leadership, Bridget Phillipson, said The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke. And her victory is seen as “a call from the Labour membership for a new direction amid growing unhappiness” with the prime minister’s government. 

As well as being “openly critical” of this government’s “unforced errors” on welfare reform and the winter fuel payment, Powell has called for an end to the two-child benefit cap and criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance on trans issues. Given these points of policy contention, said Cooke, she is “likely, at least at first, to be a thorn” in Starmer’s side.

The PM clearly favoured Phillipson to be his deputy, said The Observer’s associate editor Andrew Rawnsley, but there may be room to turn potential “peril” into “opportunity”. Powell could be deployed as a “punchy advocate” of the party’s achievements and “a facilitator of constructively critical conversation about where it is going wrong”. 

What next?
Powell is expected to remain on the backbenches, but she could, in time, “become a lightning rod for discontent”, said Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby. 

Next May’s elections for the Welsh Senedd are regarded as a moment of maximum danger for Starmer, and could be when Powell’s influence really matters. If Labour loses its century-long dominance in Wales, Starmer “will undoubtedly face some calls to stand down”, said Morgan Jones in The Guardian. “It’s hard to picture Powell as the smiler with the knife – but equally difficult to imagine her being hugely energetic in any endeavours to keep Starmer in No. 10.”

Cameroon’s Constitutional Council yesterday upheld President Paul Biya’s contested victory in this month’s elections. The council ruled that the incumbent had received 53.66% of the vote, while opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary won 35.19%.

At the age of 92, Biya is the world’s oldest elected leader as he enters his eighth term in office. Previous votes in Cameroon were also decried as unfair, but the most recent presidential election saw long-standing tensions spill onto the streets.

Tampering allegations
Tchiroma claimed victory days after voters went to the polls on 12 October, and accused the Biya regime of  vote tampering, “echoing civil society groups’ earlier reports of ‘several irregularities,’ including attempted ballot stuffing”, said The Associated Press. Dismissing those claims, Biya “accused the opposition candidate of trying to disrupt the electoral process”, as “pockets of protests broke out in several cities”.

At least four people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces in the country’s economic capital, Douala, and “police fired tear gas” into crowds in Tchiroma’s home city of Garoua, said Al Jazeera. The protesters were further angered by an internet outage that partially cut off web access in the country. Officials blamed the outage on “a submarine cable cut”, but the government previously “shut down the internet to suppress demonstrations in 2017”, said Bloomberg.

Test of stability
Biya will now “extend his presidency by another seven years and lead the oil-exporting nation until he’s almost 100”, said Bloomberg. Most people in Cameroon, where the “median age is 18, have never experienced life under any other president”.

Despite his “advanced age and declining health” – he is rarely seen in public – Biya’s ministers insist he can tackle the issues facing the country, said The Guardian. In addition to “political stagnation”, Cameroon is grappling with “significant socioeconomic challenges”, as well as “ongoing conflicts” with jihadist insurgency Boko Haram in the north and a separatist militia in the west.

“What comes next will be a test for Cameroon’s stability,” Comfort Ero, president of the non-profit International Crisis Group, told The Africa Report. Authorities should “avoid attempting to resolve the emerging electoral crisis by force”.

Police officers escort suspects out of Rio de Janeiro’s Vila Cruzeiro favela. Security forces have launched an operation involving at least 2,500 agents to arrest drug traffickers from the Comando Vermelho, one of the foremost criminal organisations in Brazil.

Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty Images

Sometimes a relaxing beach holiday doesn’t quite cut it. Whatever the weather, an adventure holiday can offer fun and thrilling memories.

Everest Base Camp, Nepal
Everest is a “quintessential bucket-list” destination, said Outlook Traveller. Scaling the full summit is riddled with danger, but exploring the “roof of the world” with a trek to the base camp allows climbers to soak up “incomparable” views in safety. The best times to travel are pre- and post-monsoon (March–May and September–November), when the weather is “less full of surprises”.

Horse riding in the desert, Mongolia
Expect “undoubtedly epic” sights from the saddle in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, said National Geographic. Home to the Mongol Derby, a 620-mile endurance race on semi-wild horses, adventure is never far. For something more laid-back, consider a five-day holiday riding for an average of about 20 miles a day. Visit Buddhist temples and nomadic families on horseback and camp beneath the “starry skies”.

Hiking in the Dolomites, Italy
Italians “caught on to the joys of a Dolomites summer during the pandemic”, said The Times. One of the “favourite” mountain paths, from Cortina following the Alta Via 1, “cheats” by incorporating links to bus routes and “eschewing mountain refuges for the sort of small Alpine hotel you usually see on cuckoo clocks”.

Canyoning and diving, Portugal
Madeira is an “unsung paradise” for adventure seekers, said Euronews. Diving is the best way to explore the reefs, caves and volcanic rock formations, and the archipelago also offers an abundance of other outdoor activities. The three-and-a-half-hour “Pico to Pico” trail, scaling two mountains, is one of the highlights.

Will the new Planning Bill get Britain building?
James Clark in City A.M.
Britain’s planning system is plagued by “nervousness, delays and complex rules”, writes planning lawyer James Clark. The reforms in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill are “broadly welcomed”, but any further “legislative changes”, even “positive” ones, could “stall development rather than accelerate it”.  If “implemented well”, the current reforms “could reduce complexity and speed up delivery”, but “the system needs time to bed down” to avoid the risk of “paralysis”.

Yes, Keir Starmer is Britain’s most unpopular PM ever. That could liberate him
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
“What hell is the life of politics,” writes Polly Toynbee. Keir Starmer is our “most unpopular prime minister ever”, despite being a “decent, serious man of good intentions, without undue arrogance or vanity”. His party’s “only hope lies in despair”: “assume they will be wiped out”, whatever happens, and “use this massive majority for four more years” to do “what they think most right and fair”, rather than trying to woo the “Daily Mail-inflected right”.

I never went to university but I’d love to do a mad PhD
Caitlin Moran in The Times
I like hearing “what actually goes on” at university, writes Caitlin Moran, “not least because I didn’t go”. There’s often some “tutting report” criticising grants for PhDs on “lesbian canal boaters” or “queer fat activism”. Back in 1905, “people were outraged women were studying medicine”. But debates on what’s worth studying always conclude that young people “are into mad shit” that some older people don’t value. Not me: I’d “love to read about” lesbian boat-dwelling.