Good news for British Labourism and, at the same time, bad news for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and also for the ultra Nigel Farage. The incontestable victory in the Makerfield constituency by Andy Burnham in the by-election to the House of Commons held this Thursday opens a new phase in the party's crisis, and positions the Mayor of Manchester as the main contender to succeed Starmer in Downing Street. Burnham obtained 54.8% of the votes (24,927 ballots), very comfortably defeating the Reform Party candidate, Robert Kenyon (15,696). After almost a decade focused on local politics, the so-called King of the North will be able to return to Westminster, where he already tried to seize the party's reins after the electoral defeat of 2010.

The Russian war frigate Admiral Grigorovich reportedly fired warning shots at a British-flagged yacht in the English Channel on Tuesday, in an incident that the UK Ministry of Defence is investigating, and which occurs at a time of high tension between London and Moscow. The war in Ukraine and the activities of the so-called ghost fleet of tankers at the Kremlin's service have maximally strained relations between the two capitals, as already happened in 2018 following the attempted assassination on British territory of former spy Sergei Skripal by agents of Vladimir Putin.

The streets of Ashton‑in‑Makerfield and Hindley, the two main towns in the Makerfield constituency in northwest England, still echo a past that no longer exists. Their inhabitants would like to regain the security of a mine closed decades ago or the stability provided by the wages of a factory now reduced to ruins. Instead, they are faced with logistics centers, service companies, healthcare and elderly care providers, and zero-hour contracts that do not guarantee a single work shift.

The impunity of big tech companies is over in the United Kingdom. Or at least that is what Prime Minister Keir Starmer intends, who this Monday made a 180-degree turn and announced the prohibition of access for minors under sixteen years of age to social networks. Furthermore, adolescents up to 18 years of age will also have their ability to continuously browse social networks until late at night restricted, in what has been compared to a kind of curfew, in this case, technological. The legislative reform also aims to go further with changes to video game and live streaming platforms, so that strangers cannot contact minors. Last week, Starmer already gave an "ultimatum to Google and Apple to activate mechanisms that prevent minors from sending, receiving, or making sexually explicit images from their mobile phones.

Pope Leo XIV can say mass and warn Europe and the world that immigrants must be welcomed, whether they arrive in Arguineguín, Dover or Sicily, but his words do not count for far-right movements, such as some groups in Northern Ireland, which in recent years have staged episodes of xenophobic violence. Not because the radicals are Protestant and not Catholic, but because they exhibit "racist" attitudes, as defined by the British minister for the province, Hilary Benn, on Thursday.

In the latest edition of the Baftas, Robert Aramayo won the award for best actor for his portrayal of John Davidson (1971), a Scottish activist who has severe Tourette syndrome (TS), with involuntary physical and verbal tics. In 1989, a BBC documentary, John’s Not Mad, showed the misunderstandings and aggressions he endured as a young man. Over the years, he became one of the most visible faces of Tourette awareness in the United Kingdom, and in 2019 he received a decoration from Elisabeth II.

The major retrospective that Tate Britain dedicated to David Hockney in 2017 –I had the enormous privilege of seeing it in a small group, without worrying about the huge crowds it caused– had something of a celebration and, at the same time, of an early farewell. It was an exhibition that not only reviewed six decades of work: it aimed and succeeded in teaching the ins and outs of an artist who had turned vitality into a form of resistance. Hockney, already on the verge of turning eighty, painted every day with the urgency of someone who knew that time is finite, but who still has things to say and/or who questioned himself and strove to try to say new things.

New crisis in Keir Starmer's government. British Defence Secretary John Healey resigned this Thursday in disagreement with the government's new military investment plan. Healey accuses Downing Street of not being up to the current geopolitical moment and denounces that the Defence Strategic Review plan has been significantly watered down after months of disputes between Number 10, the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury.

Violence has shaken Belfast for the second consecutive night despite the victim's family's plea for The clashes have concentrated at the Sandyknowes roundabout, a predominantly unionist and Protestant area located about 13 kilometers northwest of the center of Belfast, near the M2 motorway and the Chimney Corner hotel, where, according to various local groups, asylum seekers are being housed. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has established a large deployment with armored vans, riot squads, and water cannons to prevent protesters from reaching the establishment.

The five, ten, twenty and fifty pound notes are changing their design. Where previously, on the reverse, there was the face of Churchill, Jane Austen, Turner and Alan Turing, respectively, there will now be an animal from the British wildlife chosen from a pre-selection of eighteen, selected by a panel of experts. On June 3rd, a public consultation was opened for this purpose, which will close on July 3rd. The public can opt for, among others, the hedgehog, the puffin, the badger, the marten, the red fox or the bumblebee. The candidates to appear on the new paper money have been divided into three categories: mammals, birds and a third group that includes amphibians, insects and fish. "Can you lend me a beaver?" may soon mean "can you lend me five pounds?". And "can you pass me a bumblebee?", perhaps it will mean "can you pass me 50?" Mysteries of slang.

Belfast experienced one of the most serious urban violence incidents in recent years on Tuesday night, after several anti-immigration protests escalated into riots, arson, and attacks on homes, businesses, and vehicles in various parts of the Northern Irish capital and its metropolitan area. The mobilizations erupted following the brutal knife attack on Monday night in the north of the city, images of which were widely shared on social media, and which were exploited by far-right groups and agitators to fuel public indignation.

The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has issued an ultimatum to major technology companies to activate mechanisms that prevent minors from taking, sending, or receiving sexually explicit images from their mobile phones. If they do not voluntarily take action within three months, the government will push for new legislation to force them to do so. The announcement, made this Monday during the inauguration of London Tech Week, would make the United Kingdom the first country in the world to require specific measures from device manufacturers and operating system developers in this regard.ad hoc for device manufacturers and developers of their operating systems in this direction.

Amidst widespread shock in the United Kingdom over the death of young Henry Nowak, the House of Commons on Wednesday witnessed an unusual episode of unity against the far-right and against the politicization that Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has sought to make of the murder. Indeed, after a night of riots in Southampton, he went as far as to predict more violence if "a large number of white youngsters think the police are prejudiced against them." At the same time, both the government and police organizations and forces are questioning whether a review of law enforcement protocols is necessary.

Police error or indication of structural bias in the treatment of victims? The dissemination by Hampshire police, in southern England, of images of the arrest of Henry Nowak, an eighteen-year-old youth, while he was seriously injured on the ground, has reopened this Tuesday in the United Kingdom the debate on security force protocols and decision-making in emergency situations. At the same time, it has sparked a controversy between the Labour government and Nigel Farage's far-right Reform Party, which has accused the police of unequal treatment, in this case against white people, "due to the dangerous ideology of so-called anti-racism, which allows people to be treated differently based on race".

Blunt politics for all to see and gossip that functions as footnotes. After 117 days of review, the British government released on Monday the second installment of the Mandelson files: 1,504 pages of documents regarding Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador to the United States. Although there is no explosive revelation directly implicating Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a designation already controversial due to Mandelson's known ties to confessed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the files offer an unusual snapshot of the inner workings of the Labour government.

The fact that Iran's war has become a headache and a difficult dead end for Donald Trump is demonstrated by the continuous ups and downs of this past week. The United States has broken the ceasefire twice, and Iran has responded with skirmishes that both sides have described as "defensive actions". In parallel, a memorandum of understanding is circulating between Tehran and Washington that, for the moment, is not bearing fruit. The result is a climate of optimism and pessimism that shakes the price of oil, and which both Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance fuel with statements that often cancel each other out. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz is tightening its grip on the global economy.

Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have died since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. The figure, one of the highest Western estimates made public so far on the human cost of the war for the Kremlin, was revealed this Wednesday by Anne Keast-Butler, the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), one of the country's three security agencies.

The Ebola crisis is worsening in Central Africa. Ugandan authorities ordered this Wednesday to close the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo "with immediate effect" due to the increase in cases of a rare variant of the virus in the neighboring country. The first infections have also begun to appear in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, located between 400 and 500 kilometers from the initial focus of the outbreak.

Change of political cycle in the United Kingdom after fourteen years of Conservative governments. Keir Starmer's Labour Party has achieved a resounding victory in Thursday's general election. With the results from two constituencies still to be announced, Labour has secured 412 seats, which comfortably surpasses the threshold for an absolute majority, set at 326. The party led by Starmer since spring 2020 has thus brought about a spectacular turnaround in the figures from the last election, held in 2019 (202 MPs), at the peak of Boris Johnson's popularity. Starmer has thus brought about a spectacular turnaround in the figures from the last election, held in 2019 (202 MPs), at the peak of Boris Johnson's popularity.

No time to lose. The transfer of power in the United Kingdom is immediate. At five in the morning this Friday, the Labour Party managed to surpass the threshold of an absolute majority (326 seats; it has obtained 412, with the result of two constituencies yet to be known), and seven and a half hours later, Keir Starmer, accompanied by his wife, Victoria, entered Downing Street after having received the commission from King Charles III to form a new executive, and having thus become the 58th premier in the country's history.