After winning the Makerfield byelection, the returning Labour MP faces a number of scenarios in his bid to replace Keir Starmer

• UK politics – live updates
• Full report: Burnham wins by huge majority

After Andy Burnham’s seismic victory in Makerfield, his prospects of becoming prime minister in short order look significantly higher than they did 24 hours ago.

But there are many variables in that process – from whether he faces a rival such as Wes Streeting in a leadership contest, to whether Keir Starmer is quickly ready to accept the likelihood of his political demise.

Andy Burnham’s positive vision has struck a powerful blow to Reform – but the PM risks diminishing the impact by clinging on in No 10

• Neal Lawson is director of the cross-party campaign organisation Compass

That tingle of emotion you felt when you awoke today? That is the long-lost feeling of progressive hope. That it comes from Makerfield is all the more remarkable. Reform has been defeated in a seat that it should have won at a canter – trailing Labour, even when its voteshare is combined with that of Restore. It finished second there in the 2024 election and it recently won all of the council seats. If Reform had faced any other politician, its candidate, Robert Kenyon, would be heading to Westminster.

But Reform was up against Andy Burnham, probably the only Labour candidate who could have held Makerfield. He is the only candidate for the party’s leadership who can defeat Reform, and the causes of Reform, and bring in a new era of progressive government. To say there was a lot riding on Makerfield would be a massive understatement.

Gerhardt/WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Manze
(Hyperion)
Alban Gerhardt eschews the romantic, heart-on-sleeve interpretations of these famous concertos, and finds nobility and poetry even in the most turbulent music

Alban Gerhardt adopts a back-to-basics approach in these thoughtful readings of cello concertos by Elgar and Dvořák. Determined to counter ideas embedded in the collective musical psyche by the likes of Jacqueline du Pré and Mstislav Rostropovich, there is a straightforwardness here, and a refusal to luxuriate that may not please those used to more heart-on-sleeve interpretations. Nevertheless, by scrutinising the scores – and few composers were as pernickety with their markings as Elgar – he finds much that is refreshing as well as illuminating.

In the Dvořák, he’s less theatrical, more poetic than his Soviet-born predecessor, aided by Andrew Manze, who keeps the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln clipped and generally light on its feet. Gerhardt’s is a noble, cleanly articulated performance that yearns where others prefer to gush and keeps its feet firmly planted in the Bohemian countryside, even when the music is at its most turbulent.

In this week’s newsletter: The melting of the Arctic’s summer sea ice is the most visible upshot of the climate crisis. Refreezing it might be a long shot – but do drastic times call for drastic measures?

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Speeding across rapidly melting Arctic ice on a snowmobile gave me a vivid feel for its beauty and fragility. The brilliant white landscape gleamed ahead, while the sky blue pools of meltwater jetted up on to my boots.

When I visited Cambridge Bay in northern Canada at the start of this month, the melt season had hit with brutal speed: temperatures were 5-10C above normal, kickstarting the melting almost overnight.

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

photograph I acquired from a large archive of negatives from a San Francisco Bay based commercial photographer taken mostly in the 1960s to 1970s.

Digital_trance has added a photo to the pool:

Digital_trance has added a photo to the pool:

De hoogste baas van het Openbaar Ministerie, Rinus Otte, heeft in een interview scherpe kritiek geuit op de manier waarop de advocaten van Marco Borsato de aangeefster en haar moeder hebben behandeld in de recent afgesloten zedenzaak tegen de zanger. Volgens Otte is de verdediging “onaanvaardbaar hard” op de slachtoffers ingegaan en zijn daarmee grenzen overschreden van wat nog als behoorlijke rechtsbijstand gezien kan worden.

Otte verwijt de advocaten dat zij het gezin van de aangeefster uitvoerig psychologisch en moreel hebben gefileerd, terwijl de kernvraag voor de rechtbank was of Borsato ontucht had gepleegd met het toen minderjarige meisje. De rechtbank sprak de zanger begin december 2025 vrij wegens gebrek aan steunbewijs voor de verklaring van het slachtoffer; het OM besloot daarna af te zien van hoger beroep omdat de kans op een veroordeling in tweede instantie volgens Otte “zeer klein” was.

Volgens Otte is een stevige verdediging in zedenzaken noodzakelijk, maar mag die niet ontaarden in het publiekelijk beschadigen van slachtoffers en hun naasten. Hij ziet de zaak‑Borsato als illustratie van een bredere discussie over de vraag hoe ver advocaten mogen gaan bij het aanvallen van de geloofwaardigheid van slachtoffers in gevoelige zedenzaken.