In your briefing today:

📣 Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood looks likely to be named Chancellor by incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham when he takes up the role on Monday. That’s a move likely to be welcomed by the City, which sent the pound to a one-year high on reports of her likely appointment.

Mahmood, who comes from the right of the Labour Party, is seen as less likely to want to borrow more, although she is expected to want to raise taxes. Ed Miliband, her rival for Number 11 Downing Street, looks likely to lose out partly because of his championing of net zero policies, and partly because of his unpopularity with the British public. (FT had the exclusive (£)) (Guardian)

📣 England tumbled out of the World Cup last night, losing 2-1 to Argentina in a keenly contested and often fiery semi-final. Reaction to the game is in today’s sport briefing, below ⬇️

But there is anger this morning that Argentina players, celebrating their win, unfurled a banner claiming the Falkland Islands as theirs. Tottenham captain Cristian Romero and Manchester United’s Lisandro Martinez were among those spotted on the pitch with the controversial sign after the final whistle blew. Fans had been banned from bringing in similarly controversial signs before the match. (Mail)

📣 Giving up ultra-processed foods could save thousands of people from dying of heart disease, experts have said, with research suggesting junk foods could be driving up to a third of cases. In the UK and US, more than half the average diet now consists of ultra-processed foods, including ready meals, breakfast cereals and fast food. Research has shown the stuff harms every major organ in the body. (Guardian)

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📣 A large wildfire has forced the evacuation of villagers, campsites and ski resorts in the Cairngorms National Park. (BBC)

📣 Only one in eight Scots watched the BBC’s struggling BBC Scotland digital TV channel each week last year, despite it costing more than £200 million. (Mail)

📣 The family of a young mum who took her own life while suffering excruciating endometriosis pain are demanding an end to “medical misogyny”. (Daily Record)

📣 Child abuser Iain Wares, who taught at Fettes and Edinburgh Academy in the 1960s and 70s, failed to show for sentencing in South Africa, delaying the prospect of him being considered for extradition to Scotland. (Scotsman)

📣 A food historian is calling for the Scottish morning roll to be granted UNESCO “living heritage” status. (Mail)

📣 British Steel has been taken into public ownership, with the government saying it had to move to “protect UK steelmaking”. (BBC)

📣 The US has stepped-up its attacks on Iran and also fired at a ship it accused of trying to run its naval blockade. Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. (AP)

📣 Nigel Farage’s £5 million gift came after he said he needed “a million a year” to stand as an MP, to cover his lost earnings. (Guardian has the exclusive)

📣 The ongoing saga of Donald Trump’s “renovations” of the reflecting pool in Washington DC: the pool has been drained again, revealing the “American flag blue” liner is now… more like a grey. (AP)

⚽️ English hearts were broken as their team slumped, defensive and passive, to Argentina in the World Cup semi-final last night, losing 2-1 at the death, having lead 1-0 ten minutes before the end.

It was a bitterly disappointing end to the nation’s trophy hopes, especially as they had taken the lead and, at times, dominated their old foes with a front-foot, aggressive performance. Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford was outstanding.

But once they got their goal from Anthony Gordon, assisted by Morgan Rogers on a swift transition, they sat back in the face of a furious Argentinian attack.

Thomas Tuchel’s defensive substitutions left them with no response when Enzo Fernandez scored the equaliser with five minutes left on the clock. Lautara Martinez scored the winner seven minutes later. Inevitably, both goals were assisted by Lionel Messi. (Report & highlights)

🗣️ Sir Keir Starmer made his last Commons appearance as Prime Minister, and the press gallery was as packed as the rest of the House to witness the occasion. (See it in full on YouTube)

Just as MPs who had been serially disloyal in recent months enjoyed giving the outgoing PM a standing ovation, and Kemi Badenoch sheathed her dagger to offer some kind words instead, so the press was unusually soft on the PM on his last Prime Ministers Questions.

Mainly.

“The House of Commons knows well how to put on the show that was about to be required of it, which was to smile, to lacrimate and then to wave off its latest victim,” writes Tom Peck in the Times. “Goodness knows it’s had enough practice in recent years.

“Badenoch reminded the prime minister of some of his less-than-prophetic words, of how he had warned her, not that long ago, that she had ‘lost control of her party’ and ‘wouldn’t last the year’. At this serving of bonhomie, it must be noted that Starmer did not smile.

Badenoch’s performance was, in truth, carefully weighed. Maryam Zakir-Hussain notes in the Independent that the leader of the opposition found a very different tone for this final confrontation with Starmer. “In touching remarks, she said: ‘I know how much his wife and children mean to him, and they are in the gallery today.

“‘As everyone here knows, our families make a huge sacrifice for our choice to enter public life. So I hope he will allow me to draw our time together to a close by thanking them for the love and support they have given him during his time in office.’”

Starmer thanked her for that, and her support at difficult moments - such as when there was an attempt to burn down his family home, and his brother died of cancer. It was another very human moment in a venue that has, so often, appeared lost to ritualistic cut-and-thrust.

In the Guardian, John Crace found “pitch-perfect” Badenoch’s performance a huge surprise. “Most of us would have put money on Kemi Badenoch failing to read the room for Keir Starmer’s last ever prime minister’s questions,” he writes. “Not a bit.”

The expressions on the Labour benches were more mixed, he notes. Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall “frequently seemed close to tears. If not, at times, in tears,” he notes.

“Standing behind the speaker’s chair was Ed Miliband. Seemingly lost in thought. Presumably wondering if, as some papers had been reporting, Andy Burnham had been spooked at the last minute into not putting him in charge of the Treasury. All that plotting just to stay in the same place.”

The Scotsman, in a leader, notes “some may regard the bonhomie as trivial. However, given the downward spiral of public discourse towards rancour, hatred and, sometimes, violence, such exchanges are important. They demonstrate that Starmer and Badenoch respect each other as human beings and that, despite their political differences, they are prepared to be friendly.”

But you can rely upon Quentin Letts of the Mail to offer a staunchly unsentimental view of the day. And, right enough, he spotted “a waterfall of crocodile tears”.

“Boxes of Kleenex to the stage door, Norman,” he writes. “Sir Keir Starmer’s final PMQs was a blubfest, a three-hanky affair, a display of guilty sentimentalism as bad as anything since assassin Macbeth’s distress at the demise of Duncan.”

But Letts clearly rather enjoyed it all, despite himself. “The old booby himself did rather well,” he writes. “Nothing became him in his premiership like his parting. But the weepiness on the Labour benches was wonderful. Four hundred hypocrites. The sham squad.”

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