Andy Burnham’s first speech to Labour Party conference as Prime Minister set out a radical agenda, wrapped in emotion

The full scale of Manchester City’s dishonesty, over years, has been laid bare. English football now has to grapple with what to do about it.

Scotland stumbled to a 3-0 defeat to Switzerland at Hampden. It was a tough watch.

This morning: Burnham says he could go “all the way” and rejoin the European Union (Independent)

Chris Mason: Burnham delivers deeply political speech with a personal core (BBC)

Patrick Maguire: Andy Burnham’s conference speech gives Labour its voice back (Times)

The pundits react: a spectrum of opinion on Burnham’s speech, later in today’s briefing ⬇️

Sam Wallace: Manchester City’s premeditated cheating is like nothing we’ve ever known (Telegraph)

Jonathan Wilson: Sham City - verdict on financial breaches is damning and punishment must be severe (Guardian)

Miguel Delaney: How can they be allowed to remain in the top flight? (Independent)

Key findings (Guardian) | Read the full (redacted) report (Premier League)

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Donald Trump insists “seriously bad people” were involved (🎥 Sky News)

Alan Pattullo: “This is the first time since 1971 that Scotland have failed to score in four successive matches.” (Scotsman)

Tom English: “New coach, new players, but same old failings” (BBC)

Five talking points as ten-man Scotland crumble (Daily Record)

Bill Leckie: “If Jack Hendry tries to tackle the flying Dan Ndoye as he chases him towards the penalty box, he only sees a yellow card. Instead, he grabs at his shoulder and we’re down to ten men barely ten minutes in.” (Sun)

It’s always instructive to look at what the voices you’d expect to be friendly are saying. And, in the Independent, John Rentoul is effusive in his praise - but also pointed in his criticism. “It was a much, much better speech than I was expecting,” writes Tony Blair’s biographer.
“I was knocked sideways by the sheer rhetorical power of the passage inspired by the twin challenge of recalling the death of his father and the insult thrown his way by John Swinney, the First Minister of Scotland, that he will be ‘the last prime minister of the United Kingdom’.
But… you could sense the “but” was coming… “But so much of the content of the speech, the policy programme for the future, was backward-looking. There is nothing as conservative as the atavistic instincts of the Labour movement in one of its bouts of sentimentality, and this was one of its worst displays.
“It was a powerful speech, a proper leader’s speech, but delivered by someone whose programme for the country is to bring back a better Seventies.” (Independent (£))

Some friendly voices were straightforwardly enthusiastic - the most enthralled I’ve read is Ian Dunt’s, who hailed this as “the best conference speech I’ve ever seen.”
“Simply put, he is acting with a degree of courage I never dared hope a prime minister would demonstrate. The commitments he made today would make Britain a kinder, wealthier, better country. But more than that, they would serve as a demonstration: that mainstream politics still has the strength to grapple with the problems Britain faces and solve them.” (Ian Dunt’s Substack)

The most noteworthy bit of policy in the speech was Burnham’s promise to dismantle the “triple lock” that preserves the value of the state pension. Iain MacWhirter asks: “seriously?”
The annual pension, he points out, is only £12,500 - half the National Living Wage. 1.5 million pensioners live on it.
“Burnham will be hoping that this move will at least signal to the bond markets that his Labour government is serious about tackling the welfare bill,” says MacWhirter.

“On the other hand, it may simply lead to accusations that Labour is punishing pensioners in order to protect the six million or so adults in the UK who are not in employment . At least pensioners have put in the hard yards, working for over 40 years. Many will be furious if they think they have done all that simply in order to fund a generation who don't seem to want to work at all.” (Iain MacWhirter’s Substack)

Then there are the usually unfriendly commentators who surprise you by being a little warmer than you expect. Tim Stanley writes in the Telegraph this morning: “Mum texted to say: ‘It reminded me of a Baptist sermon. We’ve gone from reverend Starmer to pastor Andy.’ As always, she’s right. It recalled the preaching of my childhood, absent a rousing chorus of ‘Shine Jesus, Shine’. The Church of Labour has gone in search of its soul. Could it be on the verge of a second coming?” (Telegraph)

And, of course, there are the commentators you expect to be acerbic and bitchy, and who deliver, as reliably as an old clock. Arise, Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail. “I’m sorry to be beastly,” he claims, “but there were moments in this speech when sugar levels were so high, they gave me diabetic twinges.
“In the 55th minute there was an extraordinary pause, longer than anything even in the plays of Harold Pinter. Mr Burnham stopped talking and just stood there blankly. The delegates presumed he was having a dry, as we luvvies call it. He was teetering. Oh my giddy aunt, I thought, he's going to faint. Or even be sick. Someone fetch a bowl.
“The hall rose to its feet, willing him onwards, hoping to give him time to recover. 'Go on, Andy!' implored a voice. But it turned out it was just a melodramatic preamble to a passage about his old man.

“Some of the delegates gasped at his theatrical audacity. Their hero was by now shouting - sobbing! - about 'the Britain that my dad represented'. Not even Tony Blair would have resorted to such a flourish. Maybe Mr Burnham thinks modern Britain will go for that sort of thing. Maybe he is right. But it won't work with his international counterparts. Next time Donald Trump is unhelpful to Andy, will he simply start blubbing like Stan Laurel?” (Mail)