Andy Burnham rallied the Labour Party yesterday with a conference speech that people will “talk about for years”, says Politico. The PM announced plans to adjust the pensions triple lock by 2030 to fund an NHS-style care system, and said he would consider rejoining the EU and explore options for electoral reform. Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage criticised Burnham’s plans to change the triple lock, with the Tory leader calling his speech an “ode to the past”. One of the five men arrested near RAF Fairford on Sunday morning had dialled 999 himself almost an hour before a passing farmer raised the alarm. Why the suspect called police is now being investigated along with the possible motives for the operation itself, which include surveillance, a “dry run” to test security or a stunt to send a message to the British government. Britain’s economy grew faster than previously estimated in the three months to June. The ONS says that UK GDP expanded by 0.5%, not the original estimate of 0.4%, further cementing Britain as the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.

If you hanker for the decade of “flares, shag carpeting and the Bay City Rollers”, says Stephen Daisley in the Daily Mail, then Andy Burnham’s conference speech yesterday will have been right up your street. Nationalisation, property seizures for errant landlords, the roll-back of Margaret Thatcher’s market reforms – it was a “gushing love letter to the suffocating socialism of the 1970s”. Naturally, the Labour delegates in Liverpool lapped up this “reddest of red meat”, wildly applauding Burnham’s promises to insert the state “into every conceivable crevice of the marketplace”. For those of us who actually remember what the 1970s were like – power cuts, three-day weeks, ceaseless strikes – it was “chilling”.

But credit where it’s due, says Patrick Maguire in The Times. Many have accused this government of being the same as the last one, only “with eyelashes and a nice south Lancashire burr”. What, people ask, does Burnham actually believe? Well, here’s your answer. This was a genuinely bold and radical speech, from a “pretty unreconstructed Labour man”, that challenged “just about every iron assumption” of what sensible politics ought to look like. Adjusting the unaffordable “triple lock” on pensions, opening the door to rejoining the EU, launching a commission on electoral reform, building a national care service – any one of these could be considered a “political death wish”. Burnham wants the lot. The critics who say this is an “old Labour leader making old Labour mistakes” may well be vindicated. None of the forces that have overpowered recent prime ministers of both sides have gone away. But it’s refreshing to have a leader so open about “who he is and what he believes”.

🗳️⏳ The PM’s push for a “fundamental shift” is rather undermined by his continued commitment to the previous Labour manifesto, says Robert Shrimsley in the FT, as that means his proposed changes to the triple lock, Brexit and the rest will have to wait until after the next election. If the need for change is so urgent, why not go to the country now and get on with it? “What is the point of the rest of this parliament?”

For a man who supposedly valorises the British wartime spirit, says Marina Hyde in The Guardian, Nigel Farage is remarkably quick to spread panic and unverified information. Before anyone knew anything about why five young men had been arrested near RAF Fairford, Farage had put out a “madly precipitous” video on what he called the “Fairford plot”, captioned: “Fairford proves my point on Iran and the IRGC.” Is this “hysterical” reaction really what we want in a potential prime minister? One suspects there must be a poster on the wall at Reform HQ that reads simply: “Lose Cool and Start Shitposting.”

Merriam-Webster has created an enjoyable “wordmaxxing slang quiz”. Do you know, for example, the difference between “glazing” and “shrekking”? Do you think “birbs” is connected to cold weather, commuting or flying wildlife? And would you be chuffed or miffed if someone said you’d reached “unc” status? To give it a go, click here.

What must Xi Jinping have thought, asks Howard French in Foreign Policy, watching Donald Trump perform his strange interpretation of authoritarian leadership at the White House last week? As the US president escorted his Chinese counterpart around his residence, extolling the new helipad, the under-construction ballroom, his “lavish use of gold” and the various monuments he’s planning to dedicate to himself, “Xi must have taken him for a fool”. For all the power China’s president has concentrated in his own hands over the past 13-odd years, almost none of his energy has been consumed in the pursuit of such “personalised grandiosity”.

The Chinese leader looked “as impassive as ever”, as Trump led him through a pavilion whose gilded walls featured portraits of US presidents. But Xi must have found it “highly amusing” when his host paused to point out the frame devoted to Joe Biden, which contains a picture of the autopen the former president sometimes used to sign official acts. Xi is no stranger to “internal discord”, but it would be “unimaginable” for him to openly speak ill of any of his predecessors abroad. Like the leaders of most nations with a “well-developed sense of statecraft”, he understands the importance of promoting a “unified image of his country”. And when Trump openly attacked the US media and expressed ill-concealed envy that Chinese media reports exactly what Beijing wants it to, it was only more evidence that America is losing its way, including the self-confidence that Chinese leaders have long respected “and even envied”. Whatever you make of Xi’s strongman approach, Trump’s attempt to mimic it showed him up as a “rank amateur”: an incurious and ill-informed improviser who takes too much pleasure in “celebrating his own supposed greatness, wit and wisdom”.

Israel has been quietly expanding its control in Gaza, say Samuel Granados and Aaron Boxerman in The New York Times. In the nearly 12 months since the ceasefire was agreed with Hamas, Israeli forces have created vast new earthen barriers, some almost a mile beyond the agreed-upon “yellow line” separating Israeli-controlled areas from Palestinian zones. They have also created an “orange zone” with restricted access for Palestinians and aid groups, and built at least a dozen military outposts. This “entrenchment and expansion” reflects Israel’s new security doctrine of creating buffer zones in neighbouring territories. But right-wing Israeli politicians also hope one day to build settlements in Gaza, as they have in the West Bank.

A growing body of research suggests that many surgical interventions are “little better than placebo”, says The Economist. Removing an inflamed appendix often turns out to be no better for most patients than a course of antibiotics. Of the ten most common orthopaedic procedures, which make up a quarter of all operations in Britain, some six, including spinal fusions and rotator-cuff repairs, have effects indistinguishable from drugs, physio or just... nothing. And many prostates were found to be better off with “watchful waiting” than surgical intervention.

It’s Sogaku Taguchi, says Julian Ryall in The Telegraph: a 31-year-old monk who says he is “overflowing with joy” at the prospect of cutting himself off from the rest of the world for 12 years. The hardcore holy man will be confined to a mausoleum on Mount Hiei, just outside Kyoto, where he will care for the tomb of the founder of his Buddhist sect – spending hours reciting sutras, carrying out 3,000 prostrations to the Buddha every day while chanting, and looking after the garden. With only a few hours’ sleep a night, he is expected to experience a “vivid vision” of the Buddha, some time before he emerges in September 2038.