Secondary school pupils will be encouraged to take up technical training alongside core academic learning under new plans by Andy Burnham to “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap”. Starting in September 2028, pupils in England aged 14 and over will be able to study for technical qualifications, such as manufacturing or AI, tailored to jobs available in their local area. The number of millionaires in the UK has fallen to its lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis. The Adam Smith Institute’s “millionaire tracker” dropped 7% last year to 442,000, continuing a decline that began in 2022. The centre-right think tank blames rising interest rates, which reduce the value of assets, and high-net-worth individuals choosing not to live here for tax reasons. A fourth heatwave of the year is under way across parts of Britain, with temperatures in the Midlands and southern and eastern England expected to climb as high as 35C later this week. July’s mean temperature so far is 17.5C, making it the second hottest month on record after July 2006.

Last weekend, says Fabian Grischkat in Der Spiegel, thousands of people from all over Germany gathered in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate for a Pride parade celebrating love and diversity. Hours later, an Islamist ploughed into the crowds in a van, killing one and injuring dozens more. It’s the latest in a long list of incidents targeting the LGBTQ community: in 2020, a Syrian Islamist killed a gay man in Dresden; two years later, an Islamist opened fire on a queer nightclub in Oslo, killing two and injuring several others. In the aftermath of such tragedies, it’s important not to deny the motive – this “religious fanaticism is life-threatening”. But we should also be wary of allowing such acts to be exploited by political actors, dividing us when we should be united.

I’m sorry, says Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator, but these calls not to “politicise this tragedy” are madness. When a religious hysteric takes up arms against innocents, “that’s a political attack”. And it’s not the public anger over the Islamist scourge that we should fear and which threatens to divide our society, “it’s the Islamist scourge”. What these calls for calm really mean, of course, is: “don’t raise any awkward questions about the catastrophic failures of integration”, or about the “existential incompatibility” of certain strains of Islam in societies where Jews rightly enjoy equality, women are free and homosexuality is not a crime. Had the perpetrator of the homophobic atrocity in Berlin been a “white far-right skinhead”, social media would have been “awash with fury about fascism” and the Berlin Pride people would have been “raging” rather than coy. Ringfencing Islamism like this, and not addressing the “chasm-like moral divide” in our society, will only embolden it.

Rachel Reeves sealed her fate with Andy Burnham in a phone call last September, says Christian Calgie in The Mail on Sunday. The then mayor of Greater Manchester had called for Britain to stop being “in hock to the bond markets”, sparking a minor panic among investors. A source close to Burnham says Reeves phoned him in a fury, ordering him to “walk back” his comments because her phone had “not stopped ringing”. The mayor reportedly replied, coolly: “Rachel, I simply don’t believe you.” And when the chancellor later tried to signal that Burnham should keep her on in No 11, he wasn’t having any of it.

Gatwick has become the first airport in the UK to offer a robotic parking service, says Jack Evans in The Independent. The automated system, which is now taking bookings ahead of its launch next month, allows passengers to leave their car in a designated drop-off zone near the terminal, where robots will then lift the vehicle by its tyres and move it to a secure space monitored by 24-hour security. Drivers get to keep their keys with them, and when they return from holiday the bots deliver their vehicle to a special pick-up area.

Andy Burnham’s first week in office showed exactly what he has that Keir Starmer never did, says Jonn Elledge in The New Statesman: a visible determination to have “something to announce”. Week one’s flurry of promises – from a VAT cut on energy bills to a bus fare cap and tax relief for pubs – were not huge measures individually. But together they painted a picture of a government that understands people’s grievances and is “actively engaged” in trying to fix them. Burnham grasps that while most people don’t care what happens in Westminster, they do think it’s the job of the government to make their lives more pleasant. One week in, and the PM is already signalling that “things can and will get better”.

Burnham’s eagerness to hit the ground running should serve him well, says Bagehot in The Economist, because a government’s most consequential actions tend to happen almost immediately, “or not at all”. Take Tony Blair. Almost all of New Labour’s lasting achievements – Bank of England independence, devolving power to Scotland and Wales, the national minimum wage – happened within weeks of taking power. David Cameron put austerity in train “at once”, quickly followed by cranking up VAT and introducing the triple-lock. Theresa May’s place in history was “secured” by her 82nd day when she set Britain on a path to a hard Brexit; Boris Johnson’s deal with the EU came on day 86. For all of these PMs, the years that followed came with a bit of “this and that”, but nothing compared to the decisions they took in those first 100 days. If Burnham is to achieve big things, he needs to get going.

Britain’s most complete solar eclipse for 27 years – and the best we’ll get until 2081 – is taking place on 12 August, says Michael Searles in The Telegraph, with the moon obscuring more than 90% of the sun. If you don’t have special eclipse glasses (which you can buy for £3 a pair here) one of the best ways to view the solar phenomenon is through a kitchen colander. Standing with your back to the sun, hold the strainer over a blank piece of paper to create a shadow. As the moon passes, images of the crescent will appear on the paper in each of the holes in the colander’s shadow.

To The Times:

Instead of offering to pay the Treasury more tax, why don’t the self-proclaimed “patriotic millionaires” simply donate some of their riches to the myriad charities which desperately need more support in these straitened times? They would avoid all the HMRC bureaucracy and send the money directly to where most needed. A discreet bank transfer would do the trick: a click and it would be done. But of course that would not give them the buzz of public penance. National, secular sanctification is so much more satisfying than unheralded charity.

Chris Rhodes
Horsham, West Sussex

It’s the Jodrell Bank Observatory, home to the UK’s largest telescope, say Clive Cookson and Jennifer Williams in the FT, which faces closure following cuts in the government’s physics and astronomy budget. The Cheshire site is dominated by the 76-metre Lovell radio telescope, which has been in operation since 1957 and tracked Soviet space missions during the Cold War. The £2.8m funding for its current e-Merlin project, which links seven radio telescopes across the country, will end in March 2028. Celebrity physicist Brian Cox called the cuts “hasty and ill-considered”.