In your briefing today:

📣 Andy Burnham set out his vision for Britain yesterday with a speech in Manchester that promised heavy devolution of power to the UK’s nations and regions, in what he called the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen”.

“We cannot go through another decade like the one we have just had,” Burnham told an audience at the People’s History Museum. “We need a new determination to raise living standards of every person in this land. And we must accept that to do that, to fix the economy and the country, we need to change politics and we need to do it now.”

📣 Britain’s Defence Investment Plan will finally be published today: expect to find there’s an extra £1 billion when Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech on the plan at a defence firm. In a statement issued before the speech, the PM was quoted as saying the plan would back “British innovation, British industry and British jobs and [deliver] opportunity to every corner of the country.”

It is thought priorities will have shifted from earlier drafts, with a greater emphasis on the emerging world of drone warfare, funded by reduced investment in conventional military hardware, including large ships. (Independent)

📣 Scotland has “high potential” for new nuclear energy development, according to a technical study commissioned by a UK government agency.

The report has identified several areas of Scotland as suitable for future projects. They include areas which have already hosted nuclear development, but also new areas around the Forth, and elsewhere on the east coast.

The findings are likely to reignite debate about nuclear development in Scotland: the Scottish Government has a long-standing policy of effectively vetoing any new nuclear plants. (Herald has the exclusive)

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📣 The principal of George Watson’s College in Edinburgh says she “could weep” at reports of overcrowding in the city’s state secondary schools, and claims the city’s councillors are in denial over the impact of VAT being imposed on independent school fees. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 A teenager has told of how she was injected with a date rape drug in a Magaluf nightclub: only her friends’ quick action saved her from more serious trouble. (Daily Record)

📣 The Crown Office has admitted an “error of judgement” in deciding not to prosecute former footballer David Goodwillie over an alleged rape. (STV)

📣 Detectives are investigating the fatal shooting of a Scot in the Caribbean, and potential links to a plane which vanished in mysterious circumstances. (Daily Record)

📣 Six people died in Germany after a gunman opened fire at a youth centre. Police said it was not an extremist act. (Independent)

📣 UK homes are becoming harder to sell because of high mortgage rates, new data shows. Three in five homes listed since January remain on the market. (BBC)

📣 One of Ukraine’s richest men is fighting for his life after a backpack bomb exploded in a luxury apartment in Monaco. His wife and son were also seriously injured. (Mail)

📣 Young people see smartphone bans in school as being “punitive” (Guardian)

📣 Another UK heatwave could be on the way. (BBC)

⚽️ You can say you were alive when Germany lost a penalty shootout at the World Cup. For that’s what happened late last night - or was it into early this morning? - as Paraguay knocked the European giants out, after a 1-1 draw in Boston. Germany go home: Paraguay face either France or Sweden on Saturday. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ More action from the last 24 hours…

⚽️ Your games today and into tomorrow…

🗣️ What do we make of Andy Burnham’s big speech, then? With the new Makerfield MP delivering his address yesterday morning, journalists and analysts across the country had plenty of time to digest what he said about his vision for the UK, and its economy. The reception has been mixed.

On Bloomberg, Philip Aldrick notes his plan lacks numbers. The devolution plan, he said, offered “little detail on the financial autonomy that would be expected of devolution, focusing instead on what he described as ‘an insufficiently accountable outsourced state’ based in Westminster that does not understand what Britain’s regions need."

But the rewards are huge if Burnham can make his plan real. “If he can move power to the regions, a big prize awaits in faster GDP growth,” writes Aldrick. “Should the rest of the UK catch up even halfway to London’s productivity levels, the economy would be at least 4% larger, analysis by PWC showed in 2019.

“But getting there is no easy task.” (Bloomberg)

🗣️ On the same subject, I thought Ed Conway’s presentation on Sky News yesterday, on the centralisation of the UK compared to other countries, was outstanding. It’s well worth 10 minutes of your time if you want to see how inequality in the UK is, in large part, geographic and runs from tax income to health. (Ed Conway on YouTube)

🗣️You wouldn’t expect David Frost, one of Boris Johnson’s cabinet ministers and an architect of Brexit, to be especially kind to Burnham’s speech, but his analysis is more coherent than some of his colleagues, and lands a few blows. “It’s a brave politician who chooses to give his first keynote speech in a museum, but for Andy Burnham it seemed somehow appropriate,” he writes in the Telegraph.

“For his entire speech was something of a museum piece, an artefact redolent of the Michael Foot days of Labour politics: strikes and trade union banners, class warfare in Parliament and ranting Leftists on the streets. The public sector, nationalisation, the unions, the state, splashing around public money – these are Burnham’s tools to make things better. We know how this story ends.” (Telegraph)

🗣️The left is cock-a-hoop, then, with the rise of their man? Not quite, if the Morning Star’s leader is anything to go by this morning. They worry about the lack of detail, which “justifies caution for the left,” they say.

“‘Greater public control’” stops short of renationalisation of core sectors, a minimum requirement to stop the fleecing of the British people, water pollution and the protection of vested interests in fossil fuels,” the title says in a leader. “Reindustrialisation will not happen by osmosis, nor will it be possible to deliver without a national industrial strategy and substantial public investment.” (Morning Star)

🗣️ Owen Jones found “promise”, and says Burnham represents a shift in vibes. “What matters, however, is substance, and on that front we still have more questions than answers,” he writes in the Guardian.

“He notes the ruinous impact of the housing crisis on public finances, but would that satisfy the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose absurd stranglehold over governments needs abolishing? He would surely have to change how the Treasury treats public housing investment, or reprioritise spending, or raise taxes.

“Yet there was no mention of raising taxes on Britain’s booming well-to-do. Given his fiscal commitments, how else will Burnham secure the investment needed to deliver his promise of ‘good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart’?” (Guardian)

🗣️ Emerging from the caution of the left this morning, it raised a smile that one of the warmest receptions came from another man who would have loved to be Prime Minister, but of a very different hue: William Hague, who now writes in The Times.

“I found it impossible to watch Andy Burnham’s first speech as prime minister in waiting without giving him some credit for it,” he says.

The optimism doesn’t last too long, though. “At the same time, there were some sentences at which scarred political veterans like me instantly winced,” continues Hague.

The former Tory leader warns Burham that, while devolution of power is a strong central theme, he should add financial discipline and rapid adaptation to new technology as equally vital missions. “If not,” warns the elder statesman, “they will overwhelm him”. (The Times)

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