Add to that the quite astonishing coincidence of the US, Canada and Mexico, the three co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, being in the midst of an epic trade war. Indeed, in the period in between the opening ceremony at the Estadio Azteca, and the final in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the three will be renegotiating the USMCA, the North American free trade area.

For Mr Healey, who resigned as defence secretary on Thursday (June 11), it was sport that would consume his years at Lady Lumley’s School in Pickering, then St Peter’s School in York for sixth form.

“I didn’t try hard enough in my work; I coasted, but I played every sport I could,” he told PoliticsHome in 2020, recalling his school days.

He said rugby, cricket and football were his favourite sports, but he did “anything that was going”.

Wakefield-born Mr Healey, who now lives in Rotherham, is the son of Aidan Healey OBE, a former deputy chief physical education officer of HM Prison Service.

He grew up in rural North Yorkshire, telling PoliticsHome he would “ride motorbikes and mopeds on the roads in the Yorkshire Moors with no crash helmets” and had learned to drive a tractor in fields aged 12.

Mr Healey, during a visit to Lady Lumley’s School in 2004, said: “I have really fond memories of my time in Ryedale.”

After leaving York, Mr Healey, now 66, studied social and political science at Christ’s College in Cambridge, receiving a BA in 1982.

He worked as a journalist and the deputy editor of the House, an internal magazine of Westminster, for a year in 1983.

He became a full-time disability rights campaigner in 1984 and was later campaigns director at the Trades Union Congress.

Road to government

It was in 1992 that Mr Healey first attempted to enter politics, standing an unsuccessful candidacy for Ryedale at the general election.

Mr Healey was elected as MP for Wentworth in 1997, going on to serve as a junior minister under Tony Blair and as local government minister then housing secretary under Gordon Brown.

Then economic secretary to the treasury John Healey chats to Katherine Turner, left, Ben Slater, Rhys Carlyle and Ben McCauley from Archbishop of York Junior School, Bishopthorpe, about the school website they worked on in the early 2000s (Image: Newsquest)

He was appointed as the shadow health secretary under Ed Miliband in 2010 but stood down from the role the following year and returned to the backbenches.

He returned to the shadow cabinet as housing secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020, then became shadow defence secretary.

He was appointed defence secretary by Sir Keir Starmer after Labour came to power in 2024.

He resigned from the role on Thursday, accusing Sir Keir of failing to properly fund the Defence Investment Plan (Dip).

Bolton Council has granted planning permission for a first-floor side extension at 22 Newstead Drive, Hulton, which will increase the property’s size from three bedrooms to four.

Planning officers acknowledged that a four-bedroom house would typically be expected to provide up to three off-road parking spaces.

However, the application only demonstrated two spaces on site.

Despite the shortfall, officers concluded the proposal was acceptable because the property is located within a sustainable area, just a short walk from bus services, and benefits from available on-street parking nearby.

A report prepared for the council said parking standards are considered a maximum requirement and noted there are no parking restrictions in the immediate vicinity.

The extension, measuring around 2.7 metres wide and 8.2 metres long, was also judged to be in keeping with the character of the detached property and surrounding area.

Officers found it would not have an unacceptable impact on neighbouring homes in terms of outlook, light or privacy.

No objections were received during the consultation period and permission was granted subject to standard planning conditions.

In a luxury market often blamed for flattening creativity, Maison Schiaparelli has long stood out for its defiant unconventionality. Where Coco Chanel’s creations exalted the functional elegance of the modern woman, Elsa Schiaparelli was interpreting her dreams, transforming her dresses into intellectual statements.

The story of how Elsa Schiaparelli did this is celebrated in Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, the current exhitibion at the V&A in London (until 8 November 2026). It also shows her legacy is intact. In transforming clothing into something provocative and fantastical, fuelled with an unconventional viewpoint and rooted in craftmanship, current creative director Daniel Roseberry has stayed true to Schiaparelli’s philosophy.

Key to the brand’s success is how it has consistently deployed clever, clear messaging. My research explores how luxury brands raise customer engagement and connect with their communities through distinctive shared values. From the outset, Schiaparelli’s messaging has been based on four central pillars: a strong connection to fine art; cultural relevance; recognisable iconography; and the promise of a heightened customer experience.

A connection to the art world

Elsa Schiaparelli pre-empted the kind of connection to the art world that many brands have tried to leverage ever since. When she arrived in Paris in 1922, she fell in with a distinguished avant-garde circle. Within a few years she opened her couture house and began collaborating on designs with artists. These included Cecil Beaton, Marcel Vertès, Jean Cocteau, Alexander Calder and Man Ray.

The work she did with Salvador Dalì in the 1930s is of particular note. It features several legendary pieces, including the Lobster Dress (1937) and the Skeleton Dress (1938). During this time, she also introduced her signature colour, shocking pink, to the fashion world.

The fashion consumer’s identity is no longer defined in relation to their ability to purchase particularly expensive items alone. It emerges, instead, from mastering sophisticated skills and accessing knowledge of what is cool, before it becomes too widespread.

This has led to the emergence of a new form of currency. Rather than status being solely tied to affluency, it is now connected to privileged access to information. The Schiaparelli brand pioneered a shift from a purely economic elite to a cultural elite.

Cultural relevance

Second, the brand cultivates cultural relevance. Schiaparelli was a sharp observer of her times. She gave imaginative life to objects while understanding how to reinterpret them to reflect prevailing cultural currents.

In the 1930s, by placing upside-down shoes on her models’ heads Schiaparelli sought to generate debate and prompt unconventional thinking. Similarly, the fashion house’s show at Paris Couture Week 2023 featured faux taxidermied tiger and lion heads incorporated into feminine dresses, in metaphorical irreverence.

This approach has made the brand very polarising in terms of public opinion. At the same time, it has freed it from being bound to temporary fashion trends and allowed it to be more versatile and confident, in embracing contemporary semantic codes.

Recognisable iconography

Third, in place of a logo, the brand has nurtured very identifiable recurring stylistic elements. It deploys in an unconventional way what marketing scholars Young Jee Han, Joseph C. Nunes and Xavier Drèze have termed “subtle signalling”. Here too, however, it has done so in a very loud, maximalist way. Schiaparelli is anything but boring.

Subtle signalling is often related to what branding specialists term “quiet” or “discreet” luxury. In Schiaparelli’s world, nothing is quiet or discreet. Its boldness itself is the signifier.

Take the keyhole silhouette that appears on bag flaps and shoe toes. The anthropomorphic references that take inspiration from Salvador Dalì’s alphabet, transforming eyes and noses into buttons. The tape measure that runs along shirt collars … These are just a few of the brand’s recognisable motifs. They comprise the kind of trademark that remains fundamental in the luxury world: that distinguishes people in the know, those who have the cultural capital to be able to confidently recognise a Schiaparelli piece, from those who do not.

Heightened customer experience

Fourth, in a luxury market where people increasingly value unique experiences as well as exclusive products, Maison Schiaparelli has paired very selective distribution with a distinctive customer experience. This starts when you ring the bell at the Maison’s iconic atelier in Paris, on Place Vendome. You are given an historical tour of the house, before even getting to talk about the clothes.

As research shows, an environment combines the domestic with fashion retail imperatives accentuates exclusivity. It evokes in the customer a feeling of being grounded in heritage and tradition.

Brand desirability is the main challenge for many players in the fashion world. Schiaparelli has cultivated an atelier environment and a theatrical atmosphere that enhance what makes buying and wearing the clothes so desirable. That haute-couture spirit runs through the brand’s ready-to-wear collections and it shapes its commercial strategies too.

This is the fourth pillar of the brand’s success. Creation is rooted in craftmanship and collaboration with textile artisans and embroiderers. From Schiaparelli’s handcrafted Lobster Dress to Roseberry’s most recent sculptural collections, each piece is a tribute to sartorial skill and attention to details, not to mention cutting-edge material technology.

The CEO of Tod’s Group, Diego Della Valle, who bought the brand in 2007, insists on the importance, in the era of AI, of what he terms “craft intelligence” or “artisanal intelligence”. Elsa Schiaparelli, that woman of paradoxes, would surely agree.

Over in Los Angeles – where hosts USA will play two of their three group games – it has been a similar story with regards to promotion of the World Cup.

There are banners on the streets coming out of Los Angeles Airport promoting ‘LA26’ and the tournament, while electronic billboards rotate the various members of the USA squad and a large mural in downtown LA features Argentina legend Lionel Messi. Some convenience stores also sell World Cup-related merchandise.

However, for non-football fans it would be quite easy to be oblivious to the fact that the tournament is about to get under way.

One taxi driver transporting BBC World Service colleagues expressed their surprise that such an event was set to begin, saying “There’s a World Cup happening? Who’s playing?”

But for organisers the expectation is the excitement will grow as the tournament goes on.

“I think we have had a slow build that is leading to a frothy frenzy,” says Larry Freedman, co-chairman of the Los Angeles World Cup Host Committee.

“It has been such a long time coming and with so many other sports and activities in LA people have been thinking about what they will do tomorrow, not two or three years out.

“But now we are on the eve of it kicking off people are getting very, very excited. We have a very diverse community here and people from all over the world who will have teams participating in this tournament.”

For the fans, there is certainly more excitement among them for being in the city where their country will play their games, even if they aren’t necessarily die-hard football supporters.

In Santa Monica, Isaiah and Husna – both from Sacramento County – were looking forward to experiencing the tournament.

“I’m pretty excited,” Isaiah told BBC Sport.

“I’ve never actually watched the World Cup but I will watch it this year.

“I think it will be exciting because it is here in LA now and LA is where it is at. It will be something different.”

Husna added: “Many people don’t know what the World Cup is here, but now it is in LA and this is a big popular place they will know about it and watch it.”

Both, however, admitted they were unaware of who the USA faced in their opening game.

The younger generation of Americans BBC Sport spoke to – ones who did not experience the tournament when it was last held in the USA back in 1994 – certainly seemed to be excited for the World Cup.

One such fan, Mahon, said: “We have watch parties set up so we are very excited for it.

“We do have a few friends who are not really into soccer but we are trying to get into them that we are Team USA – country pride.

“I think it has surpassed baseball in popularity here, but I don’t think it will get as big as American football or basketball.

“People will get into it.”