Burnham confirmed his intention to stand shortly after Sir Keir stepped down as prime minister on Monday.

There had been suggestions that senior minister Darren Jones or former Armed Forces minister Al Carns could try to stand – however Jones has ruled himself out and Carns is yet to confirm if he will make a bid.

Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting had previously said he would throw his hat into the ring, but gave his backing to Burnham on Monday.

Burnham has also received backing from cabinet ministers including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Health Secretary James Murray.

It is looking increasingly likely that Burnham will gather so many nominations no other Labour MP will be able to stand.

Sir Keir has said he wants an “orderly” transition of power and has authorised civil servants to meet prospective Labour leadership candidates to help them prepare for government.

Despite announcing his resignation, Sir Keir will stay as prime minister until a new Labour leader is elected.

Earlier, his official spokesperson denied that the administration is now a “zombie government”.

“The prime minister and all ministers remain in office and the normal business of government continues,” the spokesman said.

“That includes domestic priorities, such as public services, economic stability and reforms, alongside international leadership on security and growth, and you saw evidence of that yesterday with the PM in Berlin, and the focus very much remains on serving the country and getting on with the job”.

Downing Street has also said it will not make “major polices” or spending decisions during the transition to the next prime minister.

However, it is still planning to publish the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) which sets out spending for military equipment, before the Nato conference on 7 July.

Sir Keir plans to attend the defence alliance’s conference in Turkey in what is likely to be one of his final official duties as UK prime minister.

Under the timetable announced by Labour’s National Executive Committee, the new leader will be announced the day after the House of Commons is scheduled to begin its summer recess.

A hustings – where Labour MPs can ask questions of the candidates – will still go ahead if Andy Burnham is the only candidate.

The NEC has agreed that only Labour members who joined on or before 25 December 2025 will be eligible to vote in any leadership contest.

Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments

The heatwave isn’t the only thing reminscent of the ’70s…

Some are pointing out how the current heatwave is reminiscent of that of 1976. If Burnham becomes our next prime minister, we really will be back to the 70s – strikes, three-day weeks and power cuts will be back. Steve, Gateshead

‘Without support from your MPs, you were doomed’

Farewell, Sir Keir. You had a hard job and tried your best but without support from your MPs, you were doomed.

There wasn’t money in the Treasury. You tried to make savings but were forced into U-turns by MPs unwilling to face constituents affected by changes, for example about welfare reform.

Where else did your MPs expect money to come from? Essentially, your staff refused to do what you wanted and you backed down. You were the boss, you needed to be able to tell them to get on with it or face the consequences.

Burnham has done nothing so far but come out with crowd-pleasing soundbites, with no suggestion as to where the cuts to pay for them are coming from.

When he gets around to those little details, things will get interesting. Will he be brave enough to force through unpopular policies for the greater good and tell his MPs to just get on with their jobs? Because that is what a leader does. Steve Maloney, Merseyside

‘Nigel Farage is correct’

Nigel Farage is correct in saying there should be a general election anytime a PM steps down. Nobody should be in charge of a nation unless elected by its people. Simon, Haywards Heath

‘People considering voting Reform would do well to remember the claims made by the Leave EU team’

I don’t recall Farage calling for a by-election every time an MP quit the Tories to join Reform. He only wants a general election now because his party are riding high in the polls and he sees Burnham as a credible threat.

People considering voting Reform would do well to remember the claims made by the Leave EU team before the referendum ten years ago, about how much better off we’d be – and remember who one of the main protagonists on the Leave campaign was. Steven Collett, Birmingham

Did Starmer do his best to overturn a ‘democratic vote’?

Isn’t it poetic justice that Sir Keir resigned ten years on, almost to the day, from the democratic vote that he did his best to overturn? Will Podmore, London

Will bond markets ‘turn the screw on us’?

The national debt stands at £2.9trillion and we’ll soon be at the point where the bond markets turn the screw on us.

In this respect it’s worth pointing out that Starmer’s ‘achievements’ have been paid for by taxing the working man and increasing the national debt. John Daniels, Redhill

Reader is ‘tired of the media’s default strategy of attempting to tear down any and every change that is introduced’

Craig Munro (Metro, Tue) suggests the upheaval since Brexit ‘has given us all a taste for political chaos’. This may well be true for many commentators, for whom each lurch in policy is grist to the mill.

It is emphatically not the case for much of the country’s population, who are tired of the media’s default strategy of attempting to tear down any and every change that is introduced. David Michael, Twickenham

Are those who supported Starmer ‘deranged’?

I’ve just read my last MetroTalk page. It’s nothing but opinions from deranged lefties. On Tuesday, we have readers praising Sir Keir Starmer, the worst PM Britain has ever had and a man accused of prosecuting British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland. I really hope Metro ceases publication. Steve, London

Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments

MORE: The Metro daily cartoon by Guy Venables

MORE: Ryan Thomas mistakes Keir Starmer for cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer

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Nationwide, which acquired the 188-year-old lender earlier this year, announced the move on June 24 as part of wider changes to the group’s mortgage offering.

All remaining mortgage products will be withdrawn by July 2.

A spokesman for Nationwide said: “We’ll stop all new residential mortgage lending through Clydesdale from July 2.

How to Save for a Mortgage Deposit

“The two variable-rate products will be withdrawn and the fixed-rate products previously withdrawn will not be reintroduced.

“Existing customers are unaffected and will continue to hold their Clydesdale mortgage, with access to Clydesdale switcher products.

“New lending for first-time buyers, home movers and remortgage customers will be provided through Nationwide and Virgin Money, which will continue to deliver expert support, a broad product range and strong intermediary relationships.”

Clydesdale Bank recently removed fixed-rate products from the market, leaving only two variable rate options currently available.

Both of these variable rate mortgages will be withdrawn from offer by July 2.

The decision forms part of ongoing changes since Nationwide’s acquisition of Virgin Money and its subsidiary brands in April.

Virgin Money’s website stated that Clydesdale Bank’s website was taken offline on April 2 as part of the bank’s phasing out process.

Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank had previously merged to form CYBG in 2016 before acquiring Virgin Money Holdings in 2018.

The group later began rebranding as Virgin Money.

Nationwide continues to encourage customers seeking a mortgage to explore their other options with either Virgin Money or Nationwide bank.

Founded in Glasgow in 1838, Clydesdale Bank supported Scottish trade and industry throughout the Industrial Revolution.

It became Scotland’s largest bank for a brief period following its 1920 acquisition by Midland Bank and subsequent merger with North of Scotland Bank.

According to Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS), two fire engines from Farnworth attended the incident on Derwent Road.

A GMFRS spokesperson said: “At around 3.20pm on Thursday 25 June, two fire engines from Farnworth attended an outbuilding fire on Derwent Road, Farnworth.

“Whilst in attendance firefighters used specialist equipment including one hose reel, positive pressure ventilation and a Honeywell gas monitor to extinguish the fire and bring the incident to a close.

“Crews were in attendance for approximately one hour.”

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said the incident appeared to be being led by GMFRS.

Police and firefighters had to be called, to hand out water to angry passengers

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Angry passengers were stranded on a train for eight hours without electricity or air conditioning.

The Eurostar train had had left Gare du Nord in Paris and was bound for Amsterdam.

But a technical problem forced the driver to stop the train near Fresnoy-le-Luat (Oise) just after 7.30pm on Wednesday (June 24), Le Parisien reports.

Passengers were left without electricity and air conditioning and had to wait either on the train or on the side of the tracks.

It ended up being delayed by more than eight hours as people on board took to social media to share their ordeal, reports the Daily Star.

One wrote on X: “Eurostar, our train from Paris to Brussels is stopped on the tracks, what the hell is going on?”

The company replied to say: “A technical incident caused by exceptional heatwave conditions has occurred on board the train.”

One passenger described the situation as “hell” and said police, firefighters and civil protection crews arrived and assisted the elderly as well as handing out water.

A rail replacement finally arrived at 12.30am the following day allowing passengers to continue their journey to Brussels.

The original arrival in the Belgian capital was scheduled for 7.47pm on Wednesday. The other passengers continued their journey to Amsterdam by bus or taxi.

READ MORE: Man charged after ‘brawl with weapons’ on Glasgow street as car left ‘burnt out’

READ MORE: Trial hears ‘murdered’ teen Amen Teklay may have been exploited into selling drugs

Amar Chaabi, Eurostar’s chief pperating officer said: “We fully understand what our passengers experienced last night and offer them our sincerest apologies.

“The safety of our customers guided every decision taken throughout this incident. I would like to commend the exemplary efforts of our teams, SNCF Réseau, Infrabel, and the emergency services in assisting passengers to their destinations.

“We will analyze this incident in detail to learn all the lessons and continue to improve our customer service.”

Northern Ireland reached heatwave criteria yesterday by exceeding 25°C for three days

The Met Office has explained why Northern Ireland hasn’t been feeling the same heat as the rest of the UK.

On Thursday, the forecaster said that temperatures in some parts of the country could climb to 29°C, the hottest day so far as part of the current heatwave.

However, with parts of England and Wales currently facing a red extreme heat warning, the Met Office said previous cloudy days have contributed to lower temperatures.

A spokesperson told Belfast Live that the cloud “reduced any residual heat getting trapped under the clearer skies further across England and Wales”.

They said: “Much of the heat and the hottest temperatures that the UK experiences come from mainland Europe… as Northern Ireland is mostly coastal, this keeps temperatures here relatively cooler than further southeast.”

Northern Ireland reached its heatwave criteria on Wednesday by exceeding 25°C for three days in a row in Castlederg.

Temperatures on Thursday have already exceeded this by reaching 27.8°C and is likely to go higher as it reaches close to 30°C on Thrusday evening.

The Met Office spokesperson continued: “The highest June on record for Northern Ireland is 30.8 Celsius in Knockarevan, which could be at risk of getting broken but is a low probability at this time.

“It’ll start to cool off from tomorrow with a thundery breakdown into the weekend, before a westerly wind will introduce a weather front, bringing cooler and less mild air across the UK, returning temperatures to close to average.”

A yellow warning for thunderstorms had been across the country from midnight to 10am on Friday, June 26, following the period of hot weather.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here

Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is asking a judge to revisit a jury’s verdict and her 20-year prison sentence after recently published documents stemming from investigations into Jeffrey Epstein exposed what she believes contain new evidence that vindicates her.

Her 2021 conviction should be rendered “invalid, unsafe and infirm,” she wrote in a newly unsealed court filing.

Maxwell, who is now representing herself in her appeals, was found guilty of recruiting and grooming young women and girls for Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting his own trial on trafficking charges.

With all her appeals exhausted, she filed a new petition for her release inside a USB drive mailed from prison inside a FedEx envelope that was postmarked April 16. Those documents — which contain 60 pages of arguments that Maxwell wrote herself — were unsealed Wednesday night.

A furious, 101-page response from the Department of Justice urged a judge to dismiss what government lawyers described as factually incorrect and legally baseless arguments. Maxwell’s papers also repeatedly allege government misconduct, claims that are “unmoored from law, logic, or the record,” according to a response from Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz in Manhattan.

“Her victims deserve finality,” Pomerantz wrote. “She should not be permitted another attempt to level unsupported, false allegations of Government misconduct, particularly given the length of her papers, and when her request to amend further is conclusory.”

Maxwell, 64, is the only person charged in Epstein’s alleged trafficking conspiracy other than Epstein himself.

She is not scheduled to be released from prison until 2040, and her best chance of early release is a presidential pardon. Her attorney, David Markus, has previously said she would “welcome” one, and Donald Trump has publicly acknowledged he has the power to do so.

In October, the Supreme Court declined to review whether prosecutors fairly brought a case against her. Maxwell was “deeply disappointed,” Markus told The Independent at the time.

“But this fight isn’t over,” he said. “Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

After the release of millions of documents and images in connection with investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, the convicted trafficker now argues that “further factual development is necessary.”

“The petition involves a substantial body of post-trial evidence disclosed years after conviction through a statutory transparency process that did not exist during the underlying proceedings,” Maxwell wrote.

“The Court’s task therefore is not to evaluate each disclosure in isolation, but to consider the cumulative force of a record that is substantially different from the record available during trial, direct appeal, and prior collateral review,” she argued.

In response, the Justice Department condensed her lengthy arguments as an attempt to “sweep away the judgment of conviction representing the solemn verdict of a jury following a four-and-a-half week trial, convicting her for her instrumental role in the horrific sexual abuse of multiple young teenage girls, and the considered 240-month sentence.”

But that “supposedly newly available evidence … affords her no relief,” Pomerantz wrote.

“At bottom, the defendant’s claims — to the extent not barred, and nearly all are — are speculative (at best); rest on a misreading or mischaracterization of the record; fail to establish even potential prejudice, much less the required actual prejudice; and/or rely on a misunderstanding or misstatement of the law,” she wrote.

Maxwell “utterly fails” in her arguments to overturn her conviction and sentence, according to Pomerantz.

Last year, Trump reluctantly agreed to sign a measure approved by Congress that compels the Justice Department to release all investigative materials from the Epstein case in its possession.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — who Trump has nominated as Attorney General — also interviewed Maxwell as part of that Justice Department’s revived investigations into Epstein-related cases. Shortly after the interview last summer, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security women’s prison in Texas.

In December, she filed a petition for her release from prison, citing “substantial new evidence” had emerged in her case, alleging constitutional violations that she believes undermined her right to a fair trial.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer had declined Maxwell’s request for the Justice Department to send her the so-called Epstein files, leaving her with what she called an “almost impossible task” of relying on media reports about them.

If her latest move fails, her best bet at getting out of jail is a pardon from the president.

While the president and his administration are eager to wind down investigations surrounding Epstein and federal law enforcement’s handling of the cases against him and Maxwell, members of Congress are separately investigating an alleged network of powerful abusers connected to them.

Maxwell, however, has refused to voluntarily testify to Congress without assurances that she can receive some form of clemency.

In a letter to the House Oversight Committee last year, her legal team asked for immunity protections — and made another appeal to Trump for clemency.

“If Ms. Maxwell were to receive clemency, she would be willing — and eager — to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, D.C.,” according to the letter, which Maxwell’s attorneys provided to The Independent at the time. “She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning.”

Blanche, however, told members of Congress last month that he will not recommend a pardon.

“I can commit to that, of course,” he said.

The immigration detention center in the Florida swamps known as “Alligator Alcatraz” is closing after nearly a year, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday.

DeSantis said the center was always supposed to be temporary and now federal officials have enough ability to handle detention and deportation in more permanent facilities.

“It served its purpose for the time,” the Republican governor said.

Officials announced a temporary closure of the facility earlier in June, saying hurricane season made it unsafe to keep the detainees in the Florida Everglades. All the of people kept at the isolated airstrip had been sent to other facilities.

Immigration advocates said the tents were never safe or humane to hold people. Detainees at the facility have talked about their difficulty accessing lawyers, and have described poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.

The detention center was built by DeSantis’ administration in a matter of days in 2025 and President Trump came to visit site.

DeSantis and Trump said the detention center was critical to Republican efforts to return people in the country illegally back to their home countries. The Republican governor said 21,000 people were deported through the facility.

Sir Keir Starmer has had a rough run of things recently, having to step down as Labour leader and now being mistaken for an actual serial killer.

In a mortifying mix-up, former Coronation Street star Ryan Thomas got the outgoing Prime Minister confused with cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

While on the podcast with his brothers, Adam and Scott, the trio were discussing horror movies, including a ‘true horror’ like ‘Keir Starmer’.

‘I just don’t really like horror movies,’ Scott told his brothers, with Ryan chiming in that he likes true crime, prompting the name confusion.

‘Like, you know, Keir Starmer or whatever it is,’ he continued, prompting a baffled look from Adam as Scott laughed: ‘That’s the prime minister’.

It seems the Love Islander missed the big Downing Street update and Ryan’s slip-up left his brothers in stitches.

‘What’s he called?’ the Celebrity Big Brother star asked as Adam joked: ‘I mean, he is pretty much a horror story!’

Encouraging his brothers, he said it was ‘something Starmer’, prompting them to come up with ‘Jeffrey Llama’.

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Their production team burst out laughing and corrected the confused trio with the name of cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

Also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

He was sentenced to jail for 16 terms of life imprisonment in 91 but was beaten to death by another inmate in 1994.

Adam shared he had to switch off a film about Dahmer ’10 minutes in’ then went back to watch it again later.

Scott then reminded Ryan he had, in fact, met Sir Keir, to which he confessed: ‘I didn’t even know he was the prime minister at the time’.

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Unfortunately for the former Labour leader, Ryan not knowing he resided at 10 Downing Street turned out to be slightly prophetic.

Sir Keir faced the dreaded lectern outside No 10 earlier this week but has confirmed he will stay on as an MP as his successor steps up to the plate.

That successor will almost certainly be Andy Burnham, dubbed the King in the North, who has made his move from Manchester’s mayor to MP over the last few weeks.

Maybe the Thomas household has been too busy watching scary movies to pay attention to the political shambles happening in Westminster – and we can’t blame them for that.

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MORE: Here’s what Andy Burnham needs to learn from Keir Starmer’s downfall

MORE: Trump has some advice for ‘extremely liberal’ Andy Burnham

MORE: Do the public need to be more patient with PMs? Readers discuss

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