Andy Burnham’s vision for the country’s future – Manchesterism – remains highly divisive. Critics dismiss it as “mostly vibes and boosterism” that “relies on a bottom-up localism” difficult to scale at a national level, said PoliticsHome. Others applaud it as our potential economic and political saviour.

What did the commentators say?
Burnham’s programme has begun “delivering affordability and economic dynamism” by “regaining public control” of essential services, said Mathew Lawrence, director of progressive think tank Common Wealth, in The New Statesman. Manchesterism is a “horrifically overused phrase” about how my city “does things differently”, said Stephen Topping in the Manchester Evening News. But it’s true. Manchesterism is “‘place-based’ rather than party political”. It involves “public services working closer together, and in partnership with both the private sector and community groups, to ensure the benefits of a stronger economy can be felt by more people”.

The Greater Manchester region has become the UK’s fastest-growing economy over the past decade, “at more than double the rate of the national average”. Devolution has been critical: the “trailblazer” deal struck in 2023 has allowed Greater Manchester to “take public control of key services” such as the bus network, which has improved living standards and boosted the local economy. Those who have worked closely with Burnham believe Manchesterism “could work in other parts of the UK”, though it would pose “a radical departure from the UK’s largely centralised economy”.

Manchesterism may be the “buzzword of the day”, said Daniel Johnson in The Telegraph, but it’s simply people projecting their “pipe dreams” onto Burnham’s “blank canvas of soft-left localism”. “The irony is that 19th-century Manchesterism was more or less the opposite of what the Labour Party now thinks it means.” Manchester was “both the laboratory and the showcase of the Industrial Revolution”, the “citadel of free trade”. It had nothing to do with Burnham’s “municipal socialism”.

What next?
Sources say Burnham is planning to endorse a pamphlet outlining a framework for Manchesterism and how it could be rolled out across the UK.

GPS jamming across the Middle East has exploded since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February, “plunging both sides into an ‘electronic warfare arms race’”, said The Independent. “Underlying the dramatic clashes across the region”, forces on all sides are “quietly fighting an invisible war by land, air and sea, distorting tracking information to sow chaos or hide in plain sight”.

‘Major issue’
Jamming is essentially disrupting signals from global navigation satellite systems with electromagnetic noise. “Spoofing” is more sophisticated and involves transmitting fake signals to provide a false location. Both are used to distort drone and missile guidance systems. Interference “isn’t a new phenomenon”, said CNN. It has been used in modern warfare since the Second World War. But it has become “a major issue” for shipping and aircraft since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

While all sides engage in such disruption, Iran is particularly “prolific” in spoofing, said Philip Ingram, an intelligence expert and former British Army colonel. Tehran uses it to “add confusion and disrupt any of the allied intelligence gathering”.

Strait has ‘gone dark’
The problem with GPS jamming is that it cannot be contained within precise geographic boundaries and does not discriminate between military and commercial systems. On the first day of the war alone, electronic interference disrupted the navigation systems of more than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE, Qatari, Omani and Iranian waters, according to a Windward report cited by Inside GNSS.

“The missiles and drones make for good headlines, but they’re a distraction,” said global financier Erik Bethel and maritime trade expert Ami Daniel in Fortune. The “real story” is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, has “gone dark”. This is “not in some poetic sense, but literally”.

Various technologies offer protection against GPS jamming, and military-grade GPS is more resistant, but the race is on to find a more secure alternative. Global navigation satellite systems are “a wonder of the modern world”, but “the luxurious era of those signals not being messed about with intentionally is over”, said Ramsey Faragher, chief executive of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. “We need to rapidly catch up.”

Donald Trump leads a US entourage including his son Eric and Elon Musk after landing in China for a two-day visit. After stepping off Air Force One, the president was driven into Beijing in an armoured convoy, ahead of his high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

If you thought the new series of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster would be “dialling down the raunch, think again”, said Carol Midgley in The Times. “Buckle up” for another “brazen OTT romp through the 1980s posho set of Rutshire, where everyone seems to be rutting everyone else’s spouse before readjusting their bouffant hairdo and having another glass of champagne”.

Corinium boss Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) was “whacked over the head with a gold statuette” at the end of last season, but he’s back to plan “messy revenge” on his former lover Cameron (Nafessa Williams) and his nemesis, Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell). On the surface, the “daft plot” revolves around a “TV franchise war”. Really, though, “Rivals” is about “love and power”. This is a show with “huge heart” that, “despite its deliberate corniness”, is “gloriously uplifting television”.

Series two also sees the “shaggers” preparing for the 1987 general election, said Sarah Dempster in The Guardian. Can Rupert keep his seat or will the “monstrous tabloid hack” Beattie team up with Lord Tony to “stitch him up like a kipper”? And who will win the battle for the “coveted” Central South West television franchise?

The acting is “superb” – everyone seems to be having the “time of their life” – and the dialogue is “fabulous”, peppered with “twinkling” jokes. “How best to reward such exquisitely knowing escapism? Ten stars? Ten thousand stars? ‘Rivals’ is beyond earthly praise.”

I found it enormous “fun”, said Nick Hilton in The Independent. “Well written” and “well acted”, with “bucolic horniness” in spades, it’s a “rare treat in today’s television landscape”.

The hantavirus outbreak has been well-handled – but there are still dangerous days ahead
Devi Sridhar in The Guardian
Hantavirus cases occur “all the time all over the world”, writes public-health expert Devi Sridhar. But the outbreak on the cruise ship is difficult to control, especially as “quite a few passengers disembarked” before it was detected. The World Health Organization has coordinated a “coherent and integrated” global response, but “we’ll only know for sure in the weeks to come” if it’s all enough to prevent a wider spread.

The crisis is Sudan is much worse than what is acknowledged
Zia Sulik on Al Jazeera
“The world still doesn’t fully comprehend what has happened” in Sudan’s “complicated war”, writes Zia Salik of Islamic Relief UK. I recently visited Khartoum and “the destruction was apocalyptic”. An estimated 150,000 people have died, not just “from violence but from disease and starvation”. Now, the Iran war “is choking supply chains and exacerbating Sudan’s hunger crisis”. Other countries must “step up” and get aid in. “It should not be too much to ask.”

Greggs has made me ashamed to be British
Emily Watkins in The i Paper
Greggs’ “leap into international territory” with its new “outpost” at Tenerife airport is “the safest bet the chain could have made”, writes Emily Watkins. Millions of Brits fly there each year, and our citizens tend to “retreat to a copy-paste, theme-park version” of a UK high street when abroad. But with Spain offering “some of the best food in the world”, to clamour for a sausage roll is “perverse”. It tempts me “to chuck my UK passport into the Mediterranean Sea”.