In your briefing today:

📣 Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to resign today after a weekend spent holed up at Chequers, his country residence, considering his future. He could propose a succession plan that would see Andy Burnham become Britain’s next Prime Minister without a contest - although that is in the Labour party’s gift, not his.

Reports say as many as half a dozen Cabinet ministers have told Starmer that his time is up. With the Cabinet due to meet tomorrow morning, and Andy Burnham arriving in London after his by-election victory last week, the growing belief is the pressure to step down will prove too much to resist.

Starmer could set out a timetable that would see him leave in the autumn, allowing his successor to prepare a team, and policy. (Guardian)

📣 A string of suspected anti-Muslim attacks across Edinburgh on Friday left the city shocked, and drew condemnation from across the mainstream political spectrum. The BBC has footage which appears to show a topless man driving erratically before abandoning his car and attacking a black man and a delivery driver. (BBC)

📣 It’s going to be very hot across a large part of the UK this week, with an amber weather warning issued amid fears temperatures could hit 38C in some parts of England, along with very high humidity. (BBC Weather)

📣 A row over payments to lifeguard volunteers is putting lives in rural Scotland at risk, dozens of MSPs are warning. (Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 The Tartan Army got a big send-off in Boston ahead of its move to Miami for Scotland’s final group game of the World Cup, against Brazil. (Daily Record)

📣 Rod Stewart had to pause a concert on Friday night to take gulps of oxygen from a tank after nearly fainting on stage. (Independent)

📣 Peace between Iran and the US continues to look fragile with Donald Trump warning Tehran “we will take over your country” if the Strait of Hormuz is closed again, even as his vice-president JD Vance was locked in negotiations in Switzerland. (Guardian)

📣 The family of the driver killed in the Bedford train crash have paid tribute to Shaun Burton, 60, who died after the collision between two London-bound trains. (BBC)

📣 Australian police have made their biggest-ever seizure of cocaine - 2.7 tonnes of the stuff, worth $816 million, hidden in underground bunkers near Sydney. (ABC)

📣 Work to repair Washington’s Reflecting Pool will “begin immediately”, Donald Trump says, amid problems with its new blue-painted bottom, and algae. (BBC)

📣 E-commerce company Wowcher has apologised “unreservedly” for wording on an email which appeared to mock a crocodile attack on a three-year-old boy at a zoo. (Independent)

⚽️ Mo Salah scored one and set up another as Egypt secured a 3-1 victory over New Zealand. It was their first-ever World Cup win, and made passage to the next round almost certain. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ Today at the World Cup…

🗣️You won’t find a more vivid illustration of how food inflation is being caused by the US - Iran conflict than a piece, “Pain au Chocolat”, from Bloomberg. It takes as its starting point Capital Croissant, a startup baker based in Ealing in West London, and tracks how its various suppliers are all being squeezed. Along the way, it tells us why we’re paying so much more for food. And it shows how business - often of the small, entrepreneurial type - is frustrated by geopolitics a long, long way away. It’s a minor masterpiece of expository journalism. (Bloomberg)

🗣️Ten years on, most Britons think Brexit has been a mistake. That’s the verdict of research from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and Mandate, the data and strategy company, published in the Observer. They’ve found that three out of four British voters – and two in three former leave voters – now want a closer relationship with the EU.

The big drivers? “Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have turned the European debate on its head. Brits realise the age of peace and free trade is over and that they will need friends to stay safe. But Trump is so toxic and unreliable that most look now to Europe rather than America for security and prosperity.” (Observer)

🗣️Political journalist John Rentoul has been a must-follow on X - nee Twitter - for years now. His weekend missive on who Andy Burnham should appoint as Chancellor is a great example of why.

“If the incoming PM goes for Ed Miliband, his government is over before it has started,” he writes.

“Miliband’s record at the energy department ought to disqualify him,” he says. “If that is not enough, his record as leader of the opposition ought to put the tin lid on it.”

But if not Ed, who? Rentoul - who literally wrote the book on Tony Blair - thinks it might be Wes Streeting.

“The former health secretary gave a clever speech about ‘progressive capitalism’ four days ago. As well as praising markets and competition, he said: ‘Bond markets are not Bond villains, and fiscal rules matter. Fiscal discipline matters because credibility is the precondition for an activist state.’

“That is absolutely the message that Burnham needs to transmit to the markets.” (See his full post on X)

🗣️Terry Murden wrote on data centres in Scotland earlier in the month on Daily Business, although I’ll confess to only getting to it this weekend.

I’m interested in the debate about putting these vast warehouses of computers in Scotland. It appears the argument for them is that, first, it’s (literally) cold here, and we’ve lots of renewable energy.

But, as Terry’s piece points out, many don’t want them nearby. Locals are worried about the visual, energy, and water impact. I suspect there’s also some growing anti-AI hostility in there too.

Are they Luddites, or the sort of visionaries who, in previous lives, would have stopped historic city centres being flattened for motorways? I’m not sure. (And I’d be fascinated in your views… do hit reply). (Daily Business)

🗣️ I mentioned that the new Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day, had divided critics while uniting audiences (who think it’s terrific entertainment) in the Party Line a couple of weeks back.

I finally caught it last night, and enjoyed it - I found it moving, and Emily Blunt was magnificent, even if I struggled to entirely suspend my disbelief in the final scenes.

But it’s the kind of movie you emerge from keen for a chat, and the Kermode & Mayo’s Take podcast fit the bill during the walk home. You’ll want to forward to minute 52 to find the start of their dissection of the film. (Apple podcasts) (YouTube)

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