Politics
The end of Starmer drama and the soap opera of coronation street – but who IS our next PM?
Andy Burnham likes a joke.
He can deliver them too, either sprinkled into his plentiful online videos or as a banter-foil to opposition jibes. Remember his cheeky smile on being told as he was sworn in as the MP for Makerfield that he wasn’t the Messiah and shot back the Python response – “naughty boy”, or the eye flutter before saying “it’s dark blue actually” after Kemi branded him “a black T-shirt and a pair of lashes”.
I make no judgement on the quality of comedy, the more important observation is that Starmer would dream of doing it, and couldn’t remotely carry it off if he tried.
I doubt the ‘King-in-the-North-in-Westminster’ will be in the chamber again for PMQs until we know it’s him on the front bench with, I’m told, quite a few new faces. In total victory he can afford to do Starmer a favour and not embarrass him by turning up- but as the lads might put it like the investiture of an ‘Archbishop of Banterbury’ – a target rich environment for Kemi Badenoch:
“I wonder if the real Prime Minister has turned up today? Where is he? Oh yes up there in the back benches. Perhaps he’d like to come down to the despatch box so I can ask him questions, otherwise this seems a waste of everyone’s time”
You get the picture.
So does this Northern cocktail of wry soliloquy and the lashes mean Burnham IS any better than Starmer?
The communication is – that wouldn’t have been hard – but the plan and the vision are potentially no better and possibly worse albeit a better told and sold story.
Perhaps Burnham’s penchant for the cheery quip and political joke is the reason he’s been the subject of one, for many years.
“A Blairite, a Brownite, a Milibandian, and a Corbynite walk into a pub and the landlord says, “what’ll it be Andy?”
Burnham has a such a long history of flexibility in his political postures he could host yoga sessions in this new Number 10 North.
And given political nerds like myself forget he’s not a household name in normal households (outside Manchester) when it comes to Andy Burnham the man, the myth, the Mancunian messiah the British public are entitled to steal a line from Nigel Farage’s ‘low grade bank clerk, damp rag speech:
“Who ARE you?”
Because given the authors of Labour’s soap opera look like writing “Our Andy” into the lead role in Coronation Street, we are entitled to ask which Andy Burnham has turned up on set.
The public ought to know, opposition parties want to know, and the media want to find out.
Burnham it seems is not so keen on the latter. That is his first mistake.
Twenty six and a half years ago the Labour Party made the same mistake at the opening of the Millenium Dome. Oh I know this Tory idea -project managed by New Labour was a famous white elephant, right? Well maybe, but part of that narrative that embedded with the public, was from a relentless negative review from the media from the start. Why? Because on a near freezing, drizzling New Years Eve 1999 the press were held for two hours outside before gaining entry.
Keep the media out, treating them mean, is a risky business.
Burnham has avoided their questions and whilst some privately supportive but publicly neutral old guard commentators have explained his Manchester speech would have been overshadowed with a Q&A:
Who will your Chancellor be? Does he feel sorry for Keir Starmer having ousted him? Will he be calling an election, given he advocated for one when the Tories swapped PMs like intoxicated 10 year olds on an 80’s Noel Edmond’s kids show?
It makes internal Comms sense. Shut it down and manage the message you want. Fair enough, but first, like on Millenium Eve don’t make the lobby angry and second, they and the British people deserve to see their probable next PM subjected to rigorous questioning.
Indeed the increasingly frustrated Speaker should probably insist MPs get to grill him first, as Badenoch has suggested – perhaps he should do a pre-recess PMQs?
Because we are entitled to more than the carefully crafted cheeky chap with his dress down bonhomie but answers to politically serious questions about Britain’s future and his plans for shaping that.
Yes, he gave a speech which Oliver Dean drilled into yesterday but for me a lot of it sounded like a poor pastiche of Oasis and Beetles lyrics. Know what else has dark eyes and long lashes? The Walrus.
Interpretations of what exactly he was advocating have varied from an answer to the assumptions of the 80’s and Thatcherism the promise of council house building and the like to a geographic repositioning of the distribution of power in the UK.
Perhaps the most intriguing was the reaction from aides in Starmer’s-still number 10 that apart from hiving off part of the wheel house of U.K. power and moving it to Manchester, they are reported to have said “we were doing much of this already”
Here’s where the Tories come in, rightly nervous, whatever Kemi says about election readiness – and they aren’t – they have options here. Either it is just a differently told version of the same, which mark my words will not cut it, or it’s really different sounding but fails on the same central issue.
Burnham came across as a man with a plan built of slogans. Detail was thin and the costings, and money details non-existent. Like a major speech rich on words but pumped full of policy Monjarro. Enough big questions remain to make observers queasy.
That’s why not letting people, including the markets, know now who the Chancellor will be if Reeves is off matters. How he pays for this plan and who the Robbing to his Batman is going to be is a vital part of judging what is about to happen.
He’s had to swallow the thin gruel of the Defence Investment plan unveiled by a vanishing Prime Minister clutching at legacy life rafts which only escapes John Healey’s charge of being too little too late by two weeks and £1.5bn. There are big holes still that Burnham will have no choice but to fill, and explain how.
If he truly wants cross party consensus, he should accept the Conservative offer of votes to support welfare reform.
Then there’s the move to Manchester so our new leader can truly be the King in the North, but I doubt the actual King will ride forth for weekly meetings. If the Monarch won’t go the Mancunian, then the Mancunian must go to the Monarch, in London.
But the biggest issue of all is the motivation for this northern devolution revolution.
It’s about growth.
We are back via tackling child poverty, protection of women and girls, through Chagos, trade deals and national security to economic growth as the Government’s “number one priority”
So far nothing Burnham has said convinces he isn‘t either going to have to raise tax or borrow more. Or both. That’ll put ‘hope in your hearts’
He talked of creating economic growth via the apparatus of the state, albeit devolved to the local level.
The new order is to be an attractive environment for the private sector to be co-opted into. But that ignore the fundamental, that economic growth will only come from the private sector, flourishing not from nationalising, state controlling, largely unaccountable metro mayors. And by the way the most successful metro mayors know this.
Manchester is pointed to as growing under Burnham’s reign there, but it’s far from certain that he can translate that across a nation.
A Labour MP was at pains to tell me that Burnham isn’t ultimately destined to be like the glossy progressive hope of Canada’s Justin, glitzily successful until becoming the unpopular steward of a bloated welfare state.
It’s true though.
The iconic Legally Blonde character Elle Woods is officially back on our screens in a new TV show depicting her life long before law school.
Launching on Wednesday on Amazon Prime, Elle follows a 16-year-old version of our beloved pink-wearing lawyer-in-training, the character made famous by Reese Witherspoon in the early 2000s.
While Reese is still involved in this new project as an executive producer, the Oscar winner, understandably, couldn’t play a teenager, which is why newcomer Lexi Minetree, whose spot-on audition went viral, was cast as the young heroine Elle.
Set years before the events of Legally Blonde, Elle follows the title character as she moves from her shiny, pastel world in Los Angeles to a grungy Seattle.
Unfortunately, critics are not exactly enamoured with Elle, with many disagreeing with the direction the character was taken in this new TV spin-off.
While some have praised Lexi’s leading performance – and the show’s nostalgic 1990s setting – others felt that the show paled in comparison to the 2001 classic, and felt more like a cynical cash-in than a deserving prequel.
Here is what critics are saying about Elle so far…
“Legally Blonde 3 has been stuck in development hell since 2018, cycling through different scripts, and aborted release dates. Elle is a quick fix. And presumably a cheaper one, at that.
“It pleases shareholders, fills an ‘if you liked this, why not watch…’ tile on the Prime Video landing page, and helps line the pockets of everyone involved – even if its curiously unfunny writing and nonsensical premise will likely leave many watching unsatisfied.”
“[If you] think of Elle Woods as an endlessly rebootable franchise IP à la James Bond or Superman, and this latest adventure as a loose re-adaptation of Laura Brown’s source novel rather than an expansion of it, Elle makes perfect sense from a business standpoint – though still only somewhat from a creative one.
“Amiable enough but nowhere near as charming as its cinematic predecessor, the new series does as much to highlight the limits of the Legally Blonde concept as its adaptability.”
“It should be a lot of peppy fun and in the odd moment it is, but the scripts seem to be deliberately half-baked, as if the show isn’t expecting your full attention: the supporting characters are generic and whenever a scene throws up an opportunity to deliver a killer gag, it habitually chooses something only gently amusing instead.”
“Having established its brand of comedy as largely aesthetic, Elle moves on to plots focused on tired teen drama, a pathetic love triangle, and a lazy mystery (that, technically, includes a death, so if you wanted to call Elle a murder-mystery – as ridiculous as that sounds – you wouldn’t be off base).
“None of it hits, including the forced film tie-ins, and Minetree’s admirable performance – adding sharpness and texture to futile dialogue and lifeless dilemmas – gets lost in perspective-less content destined to be, at most, second-screen entertainment.”
“Each episode seems needlessly tedious, running between 45-60 minutes long when they should be a quick and fun 30. Beats that are telegraphed from episode one drag out endlessly and even fun bits, like the back-and-forth banter between Elle and her mum [are] marred by an almost comical amount of product placement.”
“Here’s the logic problem. Legally Blonde rested on the culture shock of Elle going to Harvard. Wouldn’t she have mentioned, and been altered by, a similarly drastic life-change a few years earlier?”
“Unlike the original film, it’s not really a comedy, whether that’s by design or because writer Laura Kittrell can’t come up with the jokes.”
“It is surely too saccharine for today’s teenagers, and too teenage for adults who lived through the 1990s and have The Craft poster to prove it. This prequel, legally bland, is stifled by its own niceness and nostalgia.”
“The main characters are arguably even more developed in the show than they were in the original movie 25 years ago, which perhaps isn’t a shock given we have eight episodes to delve into, rather than just two hours.
But while I wanted to love Elle, it didn’t hit the sweet spot I hoped it would. Her character arc was too similar to the film, and it was lacking in uniqueness to justify being a prequel.”
“Elle succeeds where other unnecessary prequels and spinoffs fail because it understands what made Legally Blonde work: Elle is at her best when she’s an underdog and a fish out of water, forcing her to prove herself to everyone around her.”
“Ultimately, those who can get past the pilot and the canon problems will be rewarded with a lighthearted, bingeable series. When I got to the season finale, I whispered an Elle Woods-esque ‘yes!’ that Elle has already been renewed for season two.”
“The series avoids taking any real chances that might rock the boat. At the end of the day, Elle is funny, Minetree’s costumes are delightfully pink (though the show itself lacks any visual vibrancy), and it’s a relatively light series to binge over a weekend. Perhaps with a second season coming, the show might course-correct. However, as a prequel, don’t expect something new: Elle trades almost exclusively in nostalgia, and that’s just a shame.”
Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock
“Despite the clumsy stereotyping, there is plenty to love about Elle. People looking for more Legally Blonde can rest easy: the series boasts much the same premise as the original film (the fish out of water trope is present here throughout) but it’s been gently massaged for a modern day audience.”
“I’ll be honest, the series (which tilts towards a second one at the end) is all a bit young for a fogey like me, but it is a nice, slick nostalgia fix – a throwback to simpler, happier times – and as a prequel, it definitely works.”
“The mere fact that Elle’s rewritten history suggests that this inspiration came much earlier in her life doesn’t completely sit with what we know of her adult life. It’s clearly supposed to be a seedling for what’s to come, but perhaps is a little overplayed. Even so, I had such a good time watching Elle that I don’t even care.
“The ebbs and flows of high school drama are deliciously played, the script is genuinely hilarious, and the overarching narrative plot is addictively compelling.”
“It’s so difficult to capture the magic of something as beloved as Legally Blonde. But believe me when I say, this is a gorgeous honouring of the original story, wrapped in so much nostalgia and warmth.
“It’s been a long time since something has pulled at my heart strings quite so much – not least with familiar faces like the late James Van Der Beek adding to that wave of recognition for older views.”
Elle is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Politics
The House | A “vivid” account of the events that divided Cyprus: Bambos Charalambous reviews ‘Cyprus 1974’
21 July 1974, Nicosia: Royal Navy helicopter evacuates local Cypriots following bombing of the area by Turkish planes I Image by: Associated Press / Alamy
3 min read
Andrew Southam’s skilfully researched and very readable book is well worth your time
It will be 52 years in July since the events of 1974 which left Cyprus divided.
They led to the United Nations peacekeeping force patrolling the green line running east to west across the island, separating the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and splitting the capital, Nicosia, in half.
Conspiracy theories still abound about the events leading up to the division of the island – these include the CIA acting out of serious concern about the socialist leanings of Archbishop Makarios, or Nato wishing to appease two of its members, Greece and Turkey, or the Greek military junta seeking to take over Cyprus – all have been woven into the mythology of how Cyprus came to be divided.
It is therefore timely that Andrew Southam’s Cyprus 1974 sets out to debunk these conspiracy theories and instead show that it was the tragic confluence of events and lack of preparedness internationally that led to the failure to stop the island’s division.
Southam starts off by giving an overview and then proceeds to explore the thinking behind the actions (and, in some cases, inaction) of the main protagonists due to political and international pressures at the time.
It is timely that Andrew Southam’s Cyprus 1974 sets out to debunk these conspiracy theories
For example, in Washington DC, Southam rightly explains that with the Watergate scandal consuming so much of president Richard Nixon and his staff’s time and energy – and with the Paris Peace Accords for Vietnam, the fallout of the Yom Kippur war and the Middle East oil crisis all needing urgent attention – US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had plenty on his plate.
Flitting seamlessly from one nation to another, and through the use of archive material, Southam paints a vivid picture as to what was going on at the time.
The way this book is structured makes it easy to envisage it being a made into a TV documentary or a film. There is some repetition, which Southam acknowledges from the outset but only in so far as it is relevant to recap and progress the chapter further.
The book is well-researched and very readable even if you have no prior knowledge of the events in Cyprus in 1974.
It makes a strong case against the conspiracy theories but, 52 years on and with many of the key actors long since departed, misinformation will continue to persist. This should take nothing away from Southam’s book and the articulate way in which he deconstructs each theory. The book is well worth a read and I would highly recommend it.
Bambos Charalambous is Labour MP for Southgate & Wood Green
Cyprus 1974 – Conflict in The Mediterranean: No Control, No Conspiracy
By: Andrew Southam
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Last week, fans said goodbye to Carmy, Syd and the rest of The Bear’s central family, as Disney+ dropped the final season of the culinary drama in one go.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about The Bear’s ending, its lead, Jeremy Allen White, admitted it was “hard to say goodbye” to the show that propelled him to international stardom, despite knowing it was coming to an end for two years beforehand.
“We’re really lucky in that we had a build-up [to the conclusion],” the Emmy winner said. “I knew for about two years when it was going to end and how it was going to end, so there was a lot of time to prepare.”
He continued: “I’m going to miss these people so much, I’m going to miss the set. The Bear set is so specific – it’s incredibly detail-oriented and exacting, but also flexible and freeing. It’s a hard thing to say goodbye to anything you love.”
On the red carpet of the series finale, he told People how difficult it was to make the last episodes of the Emmy-winning show.
“It was hard,” he recalled. “I mean, it was hard to read. It was hard to shoot. It all makes sense.
“To me, this season, the end of the show is like – for Carmy at least – is about this sort of, like, ultimate surrender and acceptance of, kind of, like, an honesty with himself. So that all makes sense to me.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy has admitted that the very first season of The Bear will forever hold a “special” place in his heart.
“There were no expectations for the show, which was wonderful. We felt like we were really in our own world,” he said in his Hollywood Reporter interview. “We could feel it was special, but it felt like it was still ours. Then, going to the Emmys and being with everybody a year and a half later for season one, that night when the show won, I won and Ayo [Edebiri] won. It was unreal.”
Ayo Edebiri, who plays chef Syd in the series, said in the same piece that her favourite memory came when the series felt “bigger than any of us” and was renewed for a second series.
She explained that she was in New York with Jeremy on the set of a photoshoot when she heard the news of the renewal.
“I remember we were both intermittently checking our phones and being like, ‘Something is happening. What’s going on?’ It felt like people were being like, ‘Wait, no, this is really cool’,” she said.
The final season of The Bear picks up the morning that Carmy’s friends and family discover he has quit the food industry and left the restaurant to them.
Overall, the new run of episodes were met with critical acclaim, with The Telegraph praising it as a “classic recipe done very, very well”.
All five seasons of The Bear are now streaming on Disney+.
Credit: Adobe Stock
3 min read
After her committee recently published a report on solving the SEND crisis, Helen Hayes, Chair of the Education Committee, examines the proposals put forward by the government in the King’s Speech on the Education for All Bill
This article was commissioned by the Total Politics Impact team.
“A truly inclusive education system that works for every family.”
That is the ambitious claim made of the government’s recently announced Education for All Bill, which aims to deliver the reforms to special educational needs and development (SEND) support set out in the Schools White Paper.
The Education Committee, which I chair, undertook a major inquiry last year to understand the scale of the challenges facing children with SEND and their parents, carers and teachers, and to find evidence-based solutions.
Our report made a series of important recommendations for change, including early identification and support for children with SEND, ensuring the same level of support is available everywhere in mainstream schools and putting more support on a statutory footing, and increasing the number of state special school places so that children can be educated close to home.
I was very pleased to see many of our recommendations, based on evidence we heard from teachers, parents and carers, experts and children themselves, taken forward by government. For example, the government made early support one of its main principles for reform and strengthened the SEND offer available through Best Start Family Hubs.
But we know this will not be an easy or quick fix. My committee held an evidence session shortly after the White Paper’s publication, giving witnesses right across the education system an opportunity to respond to the proposals in detail.
Overall, our witnesses were cautiously optimistic. Many were pleased that the government had finally taken the issue head on and proposed some serious ideas for change. But it was clear that there are still several missing pieces of the puzzle.
Our witnesses raised the further steps needed to deliver a curriculum that is genuinely inclusive and flexible enough to deliver for every child. The recent curriculum and assessment review appears to be insufficient to deliver that, with more radical steps required.
There are also concerns about the scale of the resources required to transform the system. While the government has provided additional funding, more detail is needed on the plan for implementation and the funding required to deliver this.
I was very pleased to see many of our recommendations, based on evidence we heard from teachers, parents and carers, experts and children themselves, taken forward by government
The committee was clear in our report, published last year, that what the education system needed was not tinkering at the edges but a root and branch transformation to make inclusivity the norm in every school.
Inclusion should be properly defined, given the resources needed to make it work, and leave no aspect of the life of a school untouched. We have seen first-hand how some inspiring schools are already putting this into practice. With the right support, many more could join them.
If the government’s reforms take account of the concerns raised to my committee and in response to the consultation, I’m optimistic that the Education for All Bill will make a genuine difference to the lives of children with SEND, their parents and carers and the professionals who work with them.
Illustration by Tracy Worrall
4 min read
Lessons in political science. This week: Rivals
I didn’t enjoy Rivals as much as some. The problem was Rupert Campbell-Black. He is supposed to be Mrs Thatcher’s minister for sport – and I am old enough to remember Mrs Thatcher’s actual ministers for sport.
They were, in order of their appointment: Hector Monro, Neil Macfarlane, Richard Tracey, Colin Moynihan and Robert Atkins. None of these individuals were – and this is not meant as criticism – the sort of people on whom Jilly Cooper would have based a rakish anti-hero. Indeed, of the various people Campbell-Black is said to resemble, none were MPs; you can read into that whatever you want.
Rivals is set in 1986-7, slap bang in Tracey’s period of office, but it also contains the claim that Mrs Thatcher created the role specially for Campbell-Black, a former Olympic show-jumper, thus erasing Monro and Macfarlane, as well as their predecessors Denis Howell and Eldon Griffiths. The show also makes Campbell-Black a privy counsellor, even though the post was then held by an under-secretary of state. There were many other issues with the show’s depiction of political life, but there is a danger that this column becomes similar to the time I was watching a James Graham play with my wife, helpfully informing her of things I thought they had got wrong – until she indicated, with some forceful clarity, that she was no longer desirous of such a commentary.
Still, it’s nice to see junior ministers get some limelight. Kevin Theakston began his 1987 book on the subject quoting a newspaper claim that “few people in British politics exist in such deep obscurity as junior ministers”. That book aside, there have been precious few academic studies doing very much to bring them out of the shadows. One of the exceptions, as it happens, focuses on the role of sports minister. Published in 2011, it argued the role was primarily about raising the profile of sport, rather than policymaking. It also noted that the post was a poor career move. None of the sports ministers up to that point had made it to Cabinet, something which remains true – although a number are currently in the shadow cabinet and their race is not yet run.
One issue with studying ministers is working out what they do, and especially on which parts of their portfolio they focus. You can talk to them – the Institute for Government ran a great project doing just this – or look at what they do in Parliament. But a fascinating new piece of research published in West European Politics has instead used Transparency International’s open access record of ministerial meetings. Transparency International’s work is most often associated with studies of corruption, but it is also very useful at showing who ministers engage with. The data is available online and freely downloadable.
One issue with studying ministers is working out what they do, and especially on which parts of their portfolio they focus
This new research looked at more than 78,000 ministerial meetings held between 2012 and 2021. The key findings of the paper – that white male ministers engaged least with equalities organisations, and that women’s organisations enjoy much greater access to ministers than organisations focused on race – is interesting in itself, but the approach offers wider possibilities.
The data now runs up to 2026 covering over 160,000 meetings. To what extent does a change in government change the groups who enjoy direct access to ministers? With one exception, the top 10 groups to hold meetings with ministers before and after 2024 are completely different. Prior to 2024, the list included the CBI, the NFU, and the Federation of Small Businesses. Since 2024, the top 10 includes the GMB (straight in at number two, as they used to say on the radio), and Unison (which gets coded up separately as Unison and UNISON, and would in fact be ahead of the GMB if only civil servants could agree on the capitalisation). The appeal of the Local Government Association is clearly universal, as it is top in both lists.
There is, lurking in this dataset, the potential for great mischief. But there is also the potential for some great research.
Further reading: A McMaster and A Bairner, Junior Ministers in the UK: The Role of the Minister for Sport, Parliamentary Affairs, 2012; A Christoffersen et al, Intersectionality, NGOs and executives: who has which minister’s ear? West European Politics, 2025
Queen Camilla has found herself at the centre of debate after sharing that she recently spent time with JK Rowling.
On Tuesday afternoon, the monarch posted a picture of herself and Rowling on the Royal Family’s official social media channels, sharing that she and the Harry Potter author had met to discuss the importance of young people having access to books.
“With a shared passion for books and a deep commitment to children reading for pleasure, The Queen and author JK Rowling have met at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh,” the post read.
“Her Majesty and Ms Rowling discussed the importance of ensuring that young people have access to books and the vital part reading plays in opening doors for future generations.”
As the post became more widespread, it sparked a wave of backlash on social media, due to Rowling having become such a controversial figure in recent history due to her staunch views and commentary on issues relating to transgender people.
Over the last few years, Rowling has faced criticism for deliberately and repeatedly misgendering transgender public figures.
The Wizarding World creator also donated tens of thousands of pounds to the campaign group which raised the initial legal challenge that led to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling last year that the legal definition of a woman should include only those who were assigned female at birth.
When the decision was made, she shared a celebratory social media post alongside the message: “I love it when a plan comes together.”
Given her views, many were unhappy at seeing the Royal Family welcoming Rowling into one of their properties on X (the site formerly known as Twitter):
Meanwhile, over on Instagram, comments on the same picture have been restricted, after users made their feelings clear, responding with a sea of transgender pride flags and messages of support for the LGBTQ+ community.
“All young people? Or only some young people?” one critic also replied, while another suggested: “During pride month, [this] is a statement.”
“As an admirer of the Queen and her Reading Room I’m deeply disappointed in her giving a platform to JKR, any month but especially during Pride Month,” another wrote.
“There are many other admirable individuals to spotlight who champion reading for children and young people.”
An anti-establishment avalanche blanketed Colorado on Tuesday night.
Across the Centennial State, the candidates who cast themselves as fighters against the old-line Democratic establishment soared to victory — the clearest proof yet that the base’s fury at their leaders extends far beyond the five boroughs, following insurgents’ major victories in New York City last week.
Colorado democratic socialist Melat Kiros scored a stunning victory over 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who was first elected before the 29-year-old Kiros was born, while Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated longtime Sen. Michael Bennet, losses for two of the most dominant Democratic figures in the state. Both winners were viewed as longshots just weeks ago, but Kiros and Weiser successfully positioned themselves as the true scrappers while painting their opponents as Washington insiders who were too beholden to the party machine, with little to show for their years in office.
“For decades Democrats have failed to meaningfully deliver for working families,” Kiros said in an interview after the race was called. “We have to root out the corruption and get money out of our politics … It’s not about popular support, it’s about political will — and that means we have to vote out any of the incumbents that are standing in our way by taking that kind of corporate PAC money.” That includes, she added, not supporting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.
Manny Rutinel, a progressive state representative backed by an infusion of cash from prominent Latino groups, also cruised to the Democratic nomination to face Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) for one of the most competitive House seats in the country.
Rutinel focused much of his campaign on attacking his more-moderate foe for failing to stand up to President Donald Trump’s ICE operations.
“Folks right now are upset with the establishment, and they’re looking for fighters who are going to stand up to Donald Trump and Gabe Evans, because they are destroying our economy,” Rutinel said. “We need fighters who understand the struggles, and we’ll fight for them every single day. That’s what I’ve done throughout my entire career. That’s what I’m going to do when I’m in Congress.”
That same anti-establishment energy ran up and down the ballot Tuesday night.
Moderate-leaning Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) won his primary. But his democratic socialist-aligned opponent, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, ended the night closing in on a single-digit loss — despite Hickenlooper’s nearly 9-to-1 fundraising advantage over Gonzales in a race few observers thought would be close. She led him in Denver, the city where he was once mayor. Hickenlooper’s margin of victory was narrower than Weiser’s with 90 percent of the vote counted.
A number of more-moderate state legislators trailed their further-left opponents as well.
“Voters are angry,” said Doug Friednash, a longtime Colorado Democratic strategist and former gubernatorial chief of staff to Hickenlooper. “They are all anti-establishment and don’t feel like our leaders have fought hard enough and don’t have a coherent voice. Kiros is the clincher.”
Kiros lost her job as an attorney after writing an op-ed slamming the backlash against critics of Israel’s government, and she launched her campaign nearly a year ago with an ad portraying herself as a fighter who would deliver change. She painted DeGette, a reliable progressive vote but low-profile member, as someone who wasn’t “fighting back like they should.” In the two-minute ad, Kiros referred to the need for a fighter six times — which she carried over into her victory speech Tuesday night.
Weiser’s campaign didn’t mirror Kiros’ DSA-backed candidacy, but he did cast himself as someone who would take on both the Democratic establishment and the Trump administration. While he’s a two-term statewide official — and at age 58, is only three years younger than Bennet — Weiser built his campaign around the dozens of lawsuits he’s brought as attorney general against the president. He’s sued over everything from the president’s executive order on birthright citizenship to federal funding freezes.
“Coloradans need a governor who is a fighter,” Weiser said in an ad earlier this year. “I’ll always stand up to bullies, especially Donald Trump. Congress isn’t doing it. But I am. We are stopping him in court, winning 34 times and counting.”
Kiros’ campaign was buoyed by a wave of support from national progressive leaders and groups. She picked up major endorsements from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Justice Democrats, which has been on a hot streak this primary season and was the first national group to back Kiros’ campaign, framed the win as validation. “Our candidates are winning because they are running on an affirmative vision to make life more affordable for working class voters — from Medicare for All to ending taxpayer-funded genocide — and they are not afraid to call out a Democratic establishment that stopped fighting for us the minute they started being bankrolled by the corporations raising our prices,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the group.
The Democratic Socialists of America also poured major resources into the race, running phone banks for Kiros nearly daily in the campaign’s final stretch, knocking on over 100,000 doors and making over 500,000 calls on the ground in Denver.
Popular socialist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who emerged as one of the most visible outside organizers in New York’s insurgent sweep, dedicated multiple streams to boosting Kiros’ candidacy in the weeks leading up to the primary. At one point, he hosted her for an extended interview and also ran multiple marathon phone-banking sessions for her campaign live on stream, urging his viewers to call voters alongside him before ultimately traveling to Denver to campaign with Kiros in person on primary day.
“A thirty-year incumbent was defeated tonight. It’s clear that there is a real hunger for change. Democrats all over the country are demanding it,” Piker said. “That change is a working class centered movement. It’s socialism. We are not done yet.”
The decision to use AI to recreate the late Gene Wilder’s voice for a new Netflix series inspired by his portrayal of Willy Wonka has proved to be a controversial one.
On Tuesday, the streaming platform unveiled the trailer for its new reality series Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, inspired by Roald Dahl’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and its 1971 film adaptation.
In The Golden Ticket, players compete in a series of games and challenges in a recreation of the chocolate factory from the classic movie musical.
As was revealed in the teaser, the whole thing will be narrated by an AI rendering of Gene Wilder’s voice, which was met with a mixed reception online.
It should be noted that the AI voice was created by ElevenLabs, who were behind a similar recreation of Judy Garland’s voice last year, in collaboration with the Wilder estate.
The late actor’s widow said in a statement: “More than five decades after Gene brought Willy Wonka to life, people of all ages and backgrounds around the world continue to find joy, laughter and inspiration in his performance.
“Gene had a remarkable ability to bring humour, wonder and heart into people’s lives, and that connection has endured for generations. We are delighted that Wonka’s The Golden Ticket celebrates the warmth and imagination that he brought to the role, introducing that magic to a new generation while honouring the fans who have cherished it for decades.”
However, despite Gene’s wife and family having given the project their blessing, it still didn’t sit well with many that AI was being used to recreate his voice a decade after his death
HuffPost UK has contacted Netflix for comment.
Willy Wonka was first introduced to the world in the 1964 children’s book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, and also appeared in Roald Dahl’s follow-up Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator eight years later.
As well as Gene Wilder, the eccentric chocolatier has been portrayed on the big screen by Johnny Depp in 2005’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Douglas Hodge in a 2013 West End stage play and Timothée Chalamet in 2024’s musical origin story Wonka.
Almost two-thirds (62%) of parents say the ‘nestcation’ – or the family holiday taken together before children fly the nest – deserves to be recognised as a milestone in the same way as honeymoons or retirement trips.
In fact, one quarter of parents (25%) who have children aged 18-24 said they wished they’d taken a nestcation with their adult kids before they left home, according to a survey of 2,000 people by travel firm Kuoni.
In the past five years, more than a quarter (27%) of family holiday bookings through the company have qualified as nestcations – so it’s clearly something parents are thinking a lot about.
Data from the firm shows bookings for families travelling with 16- to 25-year-olds peaked in 2022-23, up 55% on the prior year, as families made the most of post-pandemic travel.
But rather than trailing off, family bookings including this age group have remained consistently above 27% ever since, suggesting that nestcations are something families are continuing to prioritise.
It makes sense. Among parents whose children have already flown the nest, over a third (35%) suggested a nestcation is one of the most significant experiences a family can share.
When to do a nestcation?
Parents with children still at home believe the sweet spot for a final family trip is when the kids are 18, whilst adult children think the best age is around the time they turn 20.
Writer Rita Templeton recently shared how she took her four teen boys – ranging from 13 to 20 years old – on a nestcation to an all-inclusive beach resort southeast of the Bahamas. (Interestingly Kuoni’s survey revealed 31% of UK families would opt for a hot beach destination for a nestcation and 18% would go for an all-inclusive resort).
Templeton explained that while all her boys still live at home, her eldest is set to turn 21 and her second eldest will be graduating soon, so “we’re all too aware that we’re hurtling toward an empty nest at breakneck speed”.
“To them, it was a trip to Beaches Turks and Caicos. To their dad and me, it was a precious chance to soak up these last few opportunities for complete togetherness,” she wrote of their trip, adding that it was “the perfect way to create those last few memories while we’re still all together”.
Where to go for a nestcation?
Kuoni said the top five destinations for nestcation bookings in 2025-26 were to the Maldives, Thailand, Mauritius, Greece and the USA.
But it doesn’t have to be a grand affair – even hiring a nice Airbnb in the UK can be a great way for families to connect and make special memories.
Politics
Politics Home Article | Dozens Of Organisations Urge Burnham To Strengthen Online Safety Laws
Andy Burnham is widely expected to become the next prime minister within a matter of weeks (Alamy)
4 min read
Exclusive: A coalition of charities, campaign groups, researchers and academics has urged Andy Burnham to strengthen online safety laws if, as expected, he enters No 10.
A statement coordinated by the Online Safety Network, published on Wednesday, calls on Burnham to step up the government’s response to online harms, including through new legislation that would be regularly updated to keep pace with evolving technology.
The Digital Media, Data and Communications Bill, which was previously proposed by Burnham ally Lucy Powell when she was shadow digital secretary, would be scrutinised and monitored by a standing Committee of both Houses to ensure it can tackle online harms.
In the statement, seen by PoliticsHome, 47 organisations, including the NSPCC, Molly Rose Foundation, Full Fact, Internet Watch Foundation, Hope not Hate, the Fawcett Society and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, argued that the government’s approach to online safety has been “fragmented and slow” and that Ofcom’s enforcement has lacked urgency.
“The new prime minister now has an opportunity to reset the narrative, refocus the government and the regulator and show leadership internationally by taking back control from the global businesses whose pursuit of profit runs counter to the achievement of a good digital life for British citizens,” the statement said.
“The UK urgently needs a much more comprehensive and adaptive approach to online safety and AI regulation that tackles the profit-driven business model, resets the parameters for doing business in the UK, addresses the role of online advertising in fuelling content-based harms, and secures the integrity of our information environment and democracy.
“None of this is a bar to growth and innovation: good, outcome-focused regulation sets the foundation for both.”
They called on Burnham, who is expected to become PM later this month following the resignation of Keir Starmer, to “restore faith in politics” and adopt the Online Safety Network’s Safety by design code of practice.
The statement comes after the government has committed to banning children under the age of 16 from accessing certain major social media platforms, following controversy around Grok AI producing sexualised images of children and women earlier this year.
Backbench Labour MP Jess Asato is taking legal action against xAI in the UK after Grok created sexually explicit non-consensual images of her, telling PoliticsHome that she wants the government to create a legal definition of technology-facilitated violence against women and girls to provide stronger protections against AI-generated abuse.
The signatories of the statement also criticised the move to ban under-16s from social media rather than “bolder moves to address the unsafe intentional design of those products that are the root cause of harms”. They argued that AI chatbots and social media platforms should face stronger accountability for harm caused by their products, and accused the government of having “kicked into the long grass” any regulations to allow researchers access to social media data.
Maeve Walsh, director of the Online Safety Act Network, said: “The arrival of a new PM is an opportunity for a reset of online safety policy and wider tech regulation. Civil society experts and campaigners stand ready to work with Andy Burnham to ensure his government delivers a more coherent, ambitious approach.”
Andy Burrows, Chief Executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, said: “The new prime minister will inherit a patchwork of online safety measures, including a flawed ban on certain social media platforms, but this represents an opportunity to be bolder and more ambitious.
“By delivering comprehensive safety by design measures, Andy Burnham can show he is committed to standing up for UK families with solutions that work, moving beyond performative action that will not deliver comprehensive safety for young people.
“Parents are understandably crying out for change but want change that works. A Burnham Government must commit to holding big tech to account with evidence-based measures that finally make safety and wellbeing the price to pay for doing business in the UK.”
The signatories of the statement include:
- Online Safety Act Network
- FlippGen
- Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy, University of Cambridge
- Gender + Tech Research Lab, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
- End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW)
- Elect Her
- Antisemitism Policy Trust
- Centre for Protecting Women Online
- Full Fact
- NSPCC
- Molly Rose Foundation
- Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)
- The Digital Gender Harms Research Unit (DiGHRU), University of Portsmouth
- The Coalition to End Gambling Ads
- Check My Ads
- 5Rights Foundation
- Equality Now
- Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi)
- Chayn
- Internet Watch Foundation
- Womankind Worldwide
- Adele Zeynep Walton
- Clean Up The Internet
- My Image My Choice
- Thomas William Parfett Foundation
- Fawcett Society
- Shout Out UK
- Kick It Out
- Plan International UK
- Conscious Advertising Network
- The Jo Cox Foundation
- Dr. Elinor Carmi, City St. George’s, University of London
- Samaritans
- HOPE not hate
- Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)
- Professor Emma Short, London Metropolitan University
- Welsh Women’s Aid
- #NotYourPorn
- SWGfL
- Internet Matters
- Demos
- Reset Tech
- Professor Lorna Woods OBE, Emeritus Professor, Essex University
- Save the Children UK
- Centenary Action
- Professor Clare McGlynn, Durham University
- Mental Health Foundation
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