The pound fell and government borrowing costs jumped to 2008-era highs after Andy Burnham announced his intention to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. The Greater Manchester mayor will first have to win a by-election in Makerfield after its MP, Josh Simons, resigned to make way for him – last week, however, Reform UK swept the board in the area’s local council elections. Zack Polanski has admitted he did not vote in last week’s local elections. The Green Party leader said he “fell short of time” to update his address on the electoral register after moving into rented accommodation. Party officials say a previous suggestion that he had used a postal vote in Hackney was a “miscommunication”. The first designated bathing area on the River Thames in London opened this morning. The Thames at Ham in south-west London, which is one of 13 new monitored swimming areas across England, will have its water tested once a week until the end of September to ensure it meets hygiene levels.

Here’s a question for those scrambling to replace Keir Starmer, says Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian: if the Labour Party didn’t exist, “would you invent it”? Who would lack a voice, what opportunities would be missed if there simply wasn’t a Labour Party at all? Labour candidates still pretend to represent the huddled masses, but today’s poor vote Reform or Green, while it’s only the financially secure who are likely to opt for the old established parties. The point of Labour used to be that it was the one left-wing party that could win votes, but last week’s local elections mulched that myth. So what’s it for? The need for Labour is becoming one of those “self-evident truths” that actually aren’t.

The most important question now, says Douglas Murray in The Spectator, is whether a quick leadership “swaperoo” would actually fix anything. The commentating class have “whipped themselves” into a familiar frenzy that will lead, inexorably, to Starmer stepping down, but the problems we have far outstrip the meagre talents of anyone in the Labour party, including the “King over the Irwell, Andy Burnham”. We spend beyond our means and borrow more than we can afford. A tiny number of medium and high-earning taxpayers are expected to endlessly foot the bill for the large indigent class and those who have just arrived with their hands out. We have a vastly expensive health service which is the “envy of the Third World” but not of anybody who actually has to use it; an economy that has been flatlining; and a rising left who have decided the solution is to attack the few among us who are successful. So my own advice to the Labour Party is this: “Hang on, Sir Keir.” Things can always get worse.

🙈🙊 The problem for Prime Minister Starmer is that if he sees off the leadership challenge he will end up even weaker than the Prime Minister Starmer who “precipitated that challenge in the first place”, says James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph. The tweets and open letters from unhappy Labour MPs branding him “a duffer” would still be there in the public domain and he would be subject to daily mockery. “Political authority is like virginity; once lost, it is gone forever.”

A lot of old 19th century slang sounds like it was made up yesterday by Gen Z, says T A Barron on Instagram. There’s “uhtceare”, meaning lying awake unable to stop worrying; “brabble”, meaning to quarrel loudly about something inane; “zwodder”, to denote a foggy state of mind; “snoutfair”, describing someone attractive; “scurra”, meaning someone who makes a living mocking others; and “mumpsimus”, describing someone who stubbornly holds a wrong belief even after being corrected. To see others, click here.

I’d always had brooches earmarked for a later life stage, says Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian, but in an unexpected turn of events the accessory has suddenly cast off its church fête vibe and become cool. Zendaya wore a diamond serpent brooch to last year’s Met Gala; Meryl Streep had no fewer than six on the lapel of her Dolce & Gabbana suit at one Devil Wears Prada 2 premiere; Pedro Pascal wore a huge Chanel camellia brooch to the Oscars. And I get it: there is something “cheerfully chaotic, pleasingly off-centre” about a sharp object you attach to yourself for no good reason.

Winston Churchill famously said of Anthony Eden’s failed 1956 Suez strategy: “I don’t know whether I would have dared to start; I would never have dared to stop.” The same can be said of Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, says John Bolton in The Washington Post. Now that it’s begun, any negotiated end to the crisis would be a disaster for the US: the Iranians would conclude that they could open and close the Strait of Hormuz at will and face only diplomatic, not military, consequences. Trump should either resume the bombing of what’s left of Iran’s regime, or restart his abandoned “Project Freedom” – militarily escorting merchant ships through the strait – while maintaining the blockade on Iranian ships. Eventually, the pressure in Tehran would tell.

Sorry, says Robert Kagan in The Atlantic, but how would more bombing accomplish what 37 days of bombing did not? The only way to truly “finish the job” would involve a full-scale ground and naval war, followed by a lengthy occupation. And we already know how Iran would respond to that – with retaliatory attacks on the Gulf’s energy infrastructure that would do devastating long-term damage to the global economy. “If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close.” Iran isn’t going to relinquish control of the strait. Which means they’ll be able not only to demand tolls for passage, but also to limit transit to nations that play by their rules. Lift your sanctions, Tehran will say, or your gas and oil shipments won’t be allowed through. Previous US military defeats have been either reversible (the Western Pacific early in World War Two) or far from the main theatres of global competition (Vietnam, Afghanistan). Defeat in Iran will be a strategic loss that can be “neither repaired nor ignored”.

🇮🇷💣 A confidential CIA analysis delivered to US policymakers last week concluded that Iran is in much better shape to survive an American naval blockade than previously imagined, says The Washington Post. Tehran still has around 75% of its prewar inventory of mobile launchers, and around 70% of its prewar stockpile of missiles. There is evidence the regime has been able to reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new ones.

Cannes Film Festival hasn’t always been plain sailing, says Stuart Heritage in The Guardian. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino responded to a heckler while collecting his Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction by giving her the middle finger on stage. In 1983 the paparazzi protested against the actress Isabelle Adjani’s refusal to attend one photo shoot by putting their cameras down when she arrived on the red carpet and turning their backs on her. In 1954, Simone Silva, a young star thirsty for fame, took off her top in the middle of a shoot and started cupping her breasts. It caused such a commotion that two photographers ended up with broken limbs trying to secure the best shot.

In a possible sign of things to come, a court in China has ruled in favour of a disgruntled employee who was replaced by AI, says Shweta Sharma in The Independent. Zhou joined a Chinese tech company in 2022 as a quality assurance supervisor but was later told by bosses that AI could do his job and offered a demotion with a 40% pay cut. When Zhou refused, he was fired, which he went on to challenge in court. Last month, judges ruled that the unnamed company had been wrong to fire him and ordered that he be paid more than £28,000 in compensation.

It’s Andrew Bedwell, says Milly Karsten in Sailing Today, who is due to begin his attempt to break the world record for the shortest vessel to cross the Atlantic today. At just 100cm long, the micro-yacht, which must travel 2,000 miles over the next three months, is roughly the size of a wheelie bin and only allows for the 54-year-old, 6ft Lancashire lad to be sitting down or standing up. His food will mostly consist of beef jerky, raisins and fat condensed into bars which are vacuum packed and moulded into the frame of the boat. “Outside the boat looks awful,” he says. “but from inside the boat it’s actually not that bad.”