Two of Britain’s biggest trade unions have joined calls for Andy Burnham not to pick Ed Miliband as his chancellor, arguing that his relentless Net Zero agenda is damaging jobs. The energy secretary has reportedly been helping Burnham’s backroom team develop economic policies in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Donald Trump says he’s in no rush to meet Burnham, calling the former Manchester mayor “extremely liberal” and noting he was “of a different persuasion”. More than 500 babies and mothers died or suffered serious avoidable harm due to systemic failures and “cruel” care, an inquiry into the largest maternity scandal in NHS history has concluded. Senior midwife Donna Ockenden’s review of a Nottingham NHS Trust found that the board and leaders turned a blind eye to failing maternity services between 2012 and 2025, deeming the matter “too difficult” to address. Wimbledon will remain free to watch on TV for another seven years, after the BBC announced a new deal with the All England Club to show the tournament until 2033. The broadcaster says it will “usher in a fresh new editorial and creative approach” for this year’s championships, which begin on Monday.

We do not have to become as nasty as Donald Trump’s America to be economically successful, says Max Hastings in The Times, but we will have to become “nastier than we are now”. All decent societies treat the weak and vulnerable with compassion. But in Britain, government policy from all parties – epitomised by the David Cameron-led coalition’s 2011 pensions triple lock – has for years been excessively tilted in favour of “passengers at the expense of workhorses”. An untenable 53% of our citizens receive more from the state than they contribute. Andy Burnham, promising to “reverse 40 years of Thatcherism” by attacking inequality and expanding the role of the state, threatens to make things far worse. Either he’s just saying it to placate the left, “which would make him a liar”, or he really believes it, “in which case he is a fool”.

The entire thinking part of the country understands that “welfarism is out of control”, and that the other major threats to our prosperity are expensive energy, inactive young people, excessive taxation and a ludicrous profusion of red tape. When we try to build something big like a nuclear power plant, it sinks in a cesspit of process and lobbying by special interest groups. “The old revolutionary’s call to shoot all the lawyers may not have been entirely misguided.” More broadly, we have become obsessed with upholding the rights of individuals, “notably including asylum seekers”, at the expense of public interest. If Burnham proposes to go on funding losers, he will need to find a way to cherish winners. If, instead, he pursues an ideological agenda set by Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner, “the outlook is bleak indeed for the 47% of us who pay the bills”.

An AI law firm has won a case in an English court for the first time, says Charlie Moloney in The Guardian. Freelance HR consultant Tamires Camal Taquidir paid Garfield AI around £400 to issue court proceedings over an unpaid debt of £7,000. Garfield used the tech to conduct all the legal work preceding the trial, including disputing a counter-claim launched by the defendant and preparing four witness statements, then hired a human barrister to advocate for the client in court. Taquidir won her case and was awarded the money owed.

With Rachel Reeves’s summer VAT cut on children’s meals coming into effect today, says Hannah Twiggs in The Independent, some restaurants have being going viral for their joke responses to the cut, dismissed by one as “so small it’s embarrassing”. On the “The Chancellor’s Children’s Menu” at The Blue Stoops in Kensington, you’ll find starters of oysters and snails, mains of beef and oyster pie or grilled mackerel, and a “Tax Break Trifle” for pudding. Kitty Fisher’s in Mayfair teased they would offer “lobster, steak au poivre, oysters, offal, snails and all the other good stuff KIDS love”.

Cuba’s 67-year-old regime has survived 13 US presidencies. The 14th, says George Will in The Washington Post, “has big plans”. Soon after starting the Iran war (before it started going wrong), Donald Trump said that “on the way back” from sorting out the regime in Tehran, the US would be “taking over” Cuba. If only he would. With an appalling record of viciously abusing political prisoners, communist Cuba is a “threadbare museum of Marxism” which used to rely on handouts from the Soviet Union, then on bartered oil from Venezuela, and now, without a patron, experiences electricity blackouts that can last 22 hours a day.

Some airlines won’t fly to Havana, fearing a lack of kerosene to refuel. Tourism – apart from die-hard, far-left “tyranny tourists” desperate for a glimpse of “applied socialism” – has evaporated. Harvests are failing, and once-vibrant export industries like sugar, tobacco, coffee and fruit can’t even supply the domestic market. Gaesa, an army-controlled conglomerate, controls 70% of the economy. Cuba’s government – a “family business” like North Korea’s – is still run by Fidel Castro’s 95-year-old brother Raúl, whose only priority is regime survival, at the expense of all else, including basic freedoms for his people. Many Cuban Americans, who voted for Trump by a large majority, would love to see a US military intervention and oppose any kind of diplomatic engagement that preserves the hated regime. There’s certainly no realistic case to be made that such an immiserated state could pose a threat to the US, but there are those who argue Americans have an obligation to help their unfortunate neighbour. With Trump hungry for a win before the autumn midterms, change could finally be coming to Havana.

Kohakutou candy has taken the internet by storm, says Ajesh Pataly in HTSI. The gem-like sweets, which crack with a crunch but chew with the softness of jelly, are going viral – particularly in supposedly soothing “ASMR” videos – thanks to the noise of their bite. The crackly confectionary has also started appearing in luxury collaborations for top fashion and beauty firms, such as Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Paris-based food designer Alice Malaret has created kohakutou sweets to mimic Murano glass for Bottega Veneta, while Berlin-based Soft Serves made special jewel-shaped jellies to celebrate Kylie Minogue’s recent Netflix documentary.

Britain sorely needs an “intelligent, 21st-century, non-socialist party of the centre left”, says Matthew Parris in The Spectator. Tony Blair tried to make Labour into that party, but it “lurched back” into its “confused, soft-socialist comfort zone” the moment he left. Unfortunately, Labour is half a century past its sell-by date – still tangled up in early 20th-century ideas about organised labour and a “deep, gnawing dislike” of capitalism. “The inaptitude of our 72-strong Liberal Democrats to step up to this challenge is the quiet tragedy of the hour.”

It’s Scotland’s “Tartan Army”, says Paul MacInnes in The Guardian, marching down Miami’s Ocean Drive ahead of their team’s World Cup fixture against Brazil last night, which they lost 3-0. The Scottish fan base whipped up a frenzy of attention after drinking Boston dry last week and are now giving Floridians their “moment of fun”. Local politicians welcomed the Tartan Army and their bagpipes for a formal march along the boardwalk, while local bars are sticking signs in their windows saying “we’ve got beer”. “Everybody loves the Scots,” said one fan, before whispering: “It’s just the English that people don’t like.”