Kemi Badenoch has been criticised after comparing the female allies around Andy Burnham to his “handmaidens”.

The Tory leader said they were merely “window dressing” as Labour once again prepares to make a man its leader.

Burnham is widely expected to succeed Keir Starmer after the PM announced he was resigning last Monday.

The new MP for Makerfield is currently the only person to formally announce his intention to run to be the next Labour leader and de facto prime minister.

If he gets into No.10, as expected, it means Labour will have missed another opportunity to appoint its first female leader.

At a press conference on Monday, Badenoch – the Conservatives’ fourth female leader – tore into Labour for still not choosing a woman to lead the party.

Asked about comments reported by the Spectator that some in Labour think Burnham would be the party’s first female leader in all but sex, Badenoch replied: “I don’t know what to say.

“The idea that Andy Burnham is Labour’s first female prime minister shows that that party still doesn’t know what a woman is.”

The Tories have often accused Labour of not “knowing what a woman is” amid culture wars around transgender people’s rights.

Badenoch continued: “But I’ve also found it very interesting how Labour women have been so much in a hurry to carry his bags and be his handmaiden and be at the front of his, of his, his photo pool.

“Why would you allow yourselves to be used as window dressing in this way?”

Her use of “handmaiden” likely refers to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian hit novel and the TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale, where women’s rights are completely eroded.

Burnham has been pictured surrounded by female aides on a handful of occasions, and is expected to appoint women MPs to key roles in government to counterbalance Labour’s lack of female leaders.

He has a strong body of support from influential women in the party, including ex-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, former transport secretary Louise Haigh and deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell.

In response to Badenoch’s speech, key Burnham ally Anneliese Midgley wrote on X: “Stay classy, Kemi.”

A female Labour source told HuffPost UK: “Is she for real? Does she just say this stuff to attention seek, or does she actually genuinely think that women in senior political roles are just there to be exploited by men. She’s grim.”

The Conservative leader also used her speech to compare energy secretary Ed Miliband, the soft-left MP who could be appointed as Burnham’s chancellor, to “Nigerian military dictators”.

She said: “Yes, Ed Miliband is acting like the Nigerian military dictators who ruined a lot of that country’s economic potential and made it so much poorer and in some cases bankrupted the country.”

Badenoch claimed that the UK would be heading for a “summer of chaos” if Burnham became prime minister, too.

“Difficult problems need solving, and difficult decisions must be taken,” she said.

“But the man who will be prime minister in a couple of weeks wants a three-month summer holiday, because he needs some time to work out what he thinks.

“He will spend the next three months with unions and left-wing think tanks demanding policy changes which no one voted for.

“Andy Burnham is already the prime minister in everything but name. He must put an end to speculation, walk into No 10, name his cabinet, and come to Parliament to tell the country what he plans to do.

“Instead, he is allowing speculation and this chaos to run and run. He has clearly learned nothing from the disastrous speculation of Rachel Reeves’ last budget.”

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Those looking to book a last-minute holiday this year – whether in the UK or further afield – are being urged to be wary of fake holiday listings.

According to Trading Standards Scotland, there were “a significant number” of consumer issues with holiday bookings reported last year, including fake accommodation listings being shared on social media.

Skipton Building Society said these scams are “especially common” for UK caravan holidays.

Some scammers create fake social media accounts and websites to advertise holiday properties that don’t exist or have already been booked.

Payment service provider emerchantpay also recently commissioned research which found a third of travellers had witnessed a rise in potential travel scams on social media.

Some fraudsters will also promote flights, tickets or tours that aren’t real – often at a discounted price.

One scam saw fake adverts shared on social media promoting caravan breaks at a holiday park in Ayrshire.

Trading Standards Scotland said a woman had paid £250 for a four-night break at the park, only to discover on arrival that the caravan was not owned by the person advertising it.

Another company offering glamping holidays also noticed that some of its accommodation, which was fully booked, was being advertised on fake social media accounts. The adverts contained links to a scam website with a similar URL and appearance as the glamping company.

Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert at Which?, said the statistics are “sadly unsurprising”.

She said while the onus should not fall on consumers, as social media firms should be doing more to tackle the issue, there are ways to try and avoid being duped by fake holiday listings.

• Using a reverse image search to check for stolen images,
• Checking the property’s location on an online map to see that it exists,
• Booking through official, trusted channels,
• Avoiding paying by bank transfer for anything advertised on social media.

Skipton Building Society urges consumers to check that websites have a padlock symbol before ‘https’ or ‘www’ in web browsers before booking, and to use a credit card for payments. “Never pay directly into an individual’s bank account,” the money experts add.

Lisa Webb ended: “If you think you have lost money to a holiday booking scam, contact your bank immediately and report it to Report Fraud or Police Scotland.”

Though it seems to have divided critics, Toy Story 5 has proven an undeniable box office success. It’s achieved the franchise’s biggest ever opening weekend, raking in over £227 million in the two-day stretch.

We loved the new installment – entertainment editor Daniel Welsh described it as “a return to form for the beloved animated series [and] for Pixar in general, after a hit-and-miss run for the once-untouchable studio”.

And as ScreenRant pointed out, the movie should satisfy long-standing viewers on another front too: it addressed a decades-long plot hole.

Buzz Lightyear doesn’t know he’s a toy for much of the first 1995 Toy Story movie. He truly believes he’s a Space Ranger and tries to contact his Space Command.

But that leaves a problem fans have previously pointed out on sites like Reddit: if Buzz doesn’t think he’s a toy, why does he freeze when Andy (the human owner of the toys) enters a room he’s also in?

All the other toys stop moving and talking whenever a person can see them, presumably so they can keep up their secret activity unnoticed.

But, some fans have argued, if Buzz saw himself as another human, it didn’t make sense for him to maintain the illusion of inanimacy.

Toy Story 5 seems to have given us an answer.

The new movie begins with a batch of Buzz Lightyear toys, all of which (though they’d probably prefer “of whom”) think they’re real Rangers.

Like Andy’s Buzz Lightyear, they try to contact their Space Command and can’t get through. Instead, they end up in a shipping crate in a shipyard.

When a worker gets close to them, all of the toys freeze.

And once they come back to life, one of them asks: “Why did we freeeze?”

Nobody has an answer, though one Buzz muses: “fascinating”.

It doesn’t fully explain the plot hole. But it does address it, and it shows that freezing isn’t a conscious choice for the toys – meaning Buzz probably froxe because he didn’t have any other option.

Content note: the following contains sexually violent details.

The host of The Tonight Show brought McGregor on as a guest to discuss his return to UFC.

This comes two years after the fighter was found liable by 12 jurors in a civil case after Nikita Hand accused him of raping her in a Dublin hotel back in 2018.

He was ordered to pay £206,000 in damages, though McGregor denies that he raped Hand, saying they had “fully consensual sex”.

Before the civil case, Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions made the decision not to bring criminal charges to McGregor due to insufficient evidence. Two later appeals were dismissed.

Now, fans have noticed that no clips of the McGregor interview have appeared on Fallon’s Instagram page, even though it took place days ago.

A comment under the talk show host’s Instagram clip, which showed his interview with Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney, reads: “Don’t want to post McGregor @jimmyfallon? Why not?”

It has racked up over 13,000 likes as of the time of writing.

In fact, the entire comment section under the McCartney video is filled with references to the McGregor appearance.

“Rehabilitating McGregor. I hope you’re proud of yourself,” a comment reads.

“Jimmy Fallon supports [grape emoji]ists [calling someone a “grapist” is a way of alluding to rapists online] and then hides behind other guests when called out,” another said.

Still more simply wrote Nikita Hand’s name over and over.

Similar responses have been shared under his more recent Trump, “password” game, and Milly Alcock videos on social media.

“I’m struggling to find the clips of the predator on @jimmyfallon Was it deleted? It should be acknowledged and there should be an apology!” an Instagram user opined under his most recent Instagram upload.

Others say they used to be fans but have changed their mind since the McGregor interview.

“We loved you. We thought you were one of the good ones,” a former fan said.

Comments also included the mention of tampons – “Tampon. Surgically. Removed,” one reads.

During the 2024 trial, gynaecologist and forensic examiner, Dr Daniel Kane, said he had had to remove Hand’s “wedged” tampon with forceps.

HuffPost UK has reached out to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for comment.