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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.”

Vessels believed to have departed from Myanmar in late June, with mostly Muslim Rohingya minority onboard

The United Nations has said more than 500 people are feared dead after reports of two large shipwrecks off Myanmar since late June.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) and its refugee agency UNHCR voiced alarm in a joint statement at reports “that two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days”.

⚽ Latest news in aftermath from dramatic day in Atlanta
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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.

️Updates from the first-round action at Royal Birkdale
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Bob Mac aside, it’s still a wee while until some of the more fancied stars take to the course. Time for a little scene setting, then. Ladies and gentlemen, on the tee, Ewan Murray …

A fast start for Bob MacIntyre! He sends his opening tee shot into the rough down the left, and only just finds the front of the green with his second. But he rolls in a 45-footer and birdie is not a bad way to start the week! Oban’s finest already has three top-ten finishes at the Open on his resumé, including a tie for seventh at Portrush last year. Keep an eye out.

Campaign hopes to buy site for community, fearing it could go same route of corporate gentrification as Camden and Old Spitalfields

Traders at Brixton market say they are in a battle of “people over profit” after submitting a last-minute plan to stop the site being bought by a private equity firm which they fear could price out longstanding independent businesses.

Those behind the Buy Back Brixton campaign said they are through to the second stage of a bidding process, competing against multinational companies to buy Brixton Village and Market Row for community ownership.

President Lula’s office says US move is result of pressure on White House by family of predecessor Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil has vowed to retaliate against Washington’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imports of some Brazilian products.

The office of the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described the tariffs as “a regrettable milestone” in the history of relations between the two countries and said they were the result of pressure exerted on the White House by the family of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Any boost for the military will be paid for by cuts elsewhere. Britain’s new PM should be careful he is not being sold a pup

For many British voters, politicians and journalists, public spending has had a bad name since the late 1970s, when Margaret Thatcher’s government began its long campaign to tame the supposedly bloated state. From this perspective, the public sector wastes money, commissions unnecessary or out-of-date projects and generates endless jargon and reasons for its own existence, while delivering strikingly fewer social or economic benefits.

Constant public and private lobbying for more funds from every minister, this argument continues, has helped make the job of prime minister impossible, and raised taxes and government debt to intolerable levels. Therefore the state requires a fundamental rethink – which means its sense of entitlement needs to shrink.

Rain Newton-Smith calls for a new generation of public-private partnerships to fund major projects

Andy Burnham must avoid another “summer of speculation” on tax and spend that would spook British business, the chief executive of the CBI has warned.

As Burnham prepares to take up the Labour leadership on Friday, with a new cabinet to be announced on Monday, Rain Newton-Smith urged him to tread carefully.

Campaigners hail ‘landmark moment’ in early detection and treatment of rare muscle-wasting disease

Every baby born in England will be screened for a rare muscle-wasting disease, starting next year, the Department of Health and Social Care announced on Thursday.

Campaigners said the “landmark moment” should lead to babies who were found to have spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) being treated early and thus growing up without any of its debilitating symptoms.

Campaign hopes to buy site for community, fearing it could go same route of corporate gentrification as Camden and Old Spitalfields

Traders at Brixton market say they are in a battle of “people over profit” after submitting a last-minute plan to stop the site being bought by a private equity firm which they fear could price out longstanding independent businesses.

Those behind the Buy Back Brixton campaign said they are through to the second stage of a bidding process, competing against multinational companies to buy Brixton Village and Market Row for community ownership.

Exclusive: More than 200 illegal holiday properties found in buildings at the highest level of seismic risk

Tourists in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, are staying in illegal accommodation listed on Airbnb and Booking.com in buildings considered so seismically vulnerable they could collapse in the event of a major earthquake, according to exclusive data shared with the Guardian.

Analysis of data collected by Re:Rise, a Romanian organisation working on seismic risk reduction, identified at least 207 illegal tourist rental properties advertised across the two platforms in Bucharest at the end of May, with a combined capacity to host more than 1,000 visitors each night.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

And so after nearly 70bn matches – or so it seems – the Fifa World Cup has reached the sharp end. But regular readers will know that they face the sharp end of the challenge of the Thursday news quiz every Thursday. Fifteen questions await on topical news, general knowledge and pop culture. Plus collective nouns for some reason. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 256

President Lula’s office says US move is result of pressure on White House by family of predecessor Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil has vowed to retaliate against Washington’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imports of some Brazilian products.

The office of the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described the tariffs as “a regrettable milestone” in the history of relations between the two countries and said they were the result of pressure exerted on the White House by the family of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Exclusive: More than 200 illegal holiday properties found in buildings at the highest level of seismic risk

Tourists in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, are staying in illegal accommodation listed on Airbnb and Booking.com in buildings considered so seismically vulnerable they could collapse in the event of a major earthquake, according to exclusive data shared with the Guardian.

Analysis of data collected by Re:Rise, a Romanian organisation working on seismic risk reduction, identified at least 207 illegal tourist rental properties advertised across the two platforms in Bucharest at the end of May, with a combined capacity to host more than 1,000 visitors each night.

Anne Ruston called for the party to act with ‘urgency’ after discussion paper suggested ways to improve engagement with women, multicultural communities and young people

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Angus Taylor has hosed down a proposal for the Liberal party to consider introducing gender quotas, while one of his senior shadow cabinet ministers has implored the party to act on such ideas with “urgency”.

After a discussion paper that canvassed the idea was circulated to supporters on Wednesday, the party’s leader said he has never been supportive of quotas – shortly before his deputy, Jane Hume, intervened to say all options would be considered.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Taking war to heart of Russian territory has seized initiative and reset Zelenskyy’s relationship with Trump

On 26 June, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced that he was ordering Ukraine’s state security service to launch a 40-day campaign against Russian targets aimed at “influencing the aggressor state in order to compel it to end to the war”.

Since then, Kyiv has sharply escalated attacks on Russia under the aegis of a series of overlapping operations striking key supply lines in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories, including Crimea, and striking Moscow and St Petersburg in a series of high-profile long-range missile attacks, triggering a fuel crisis.

Uncrewed systems are the future for armed forces and the Netherlands is leading the way ‘to keep people out of danger zones’

On each side of the target ship, a black vessel keeps a watchful distance. Defender 1 and Defender 2 are the eyes and ears of the navy – but they have nobody onboard, and their paths are controlled by a computer system.

This is the future of the Royal Netherlands Navy, according to Capt Sjoerd Feenstra, head of the expertise centre for unmanned systems. He is leading a five-week mission, off the coast of Den Helder in the north of the country, to test the limits of systems that operate without the human touch.

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”.