POLITICSHow Andy Burnham's school teacher inspired him to believe in himself
Stephen Harrington was Andy Burnham's teacher in the late 1980s and persuaded the now-MP to apply to Cambridge University
"He needed a lot of persuading to apply because he felt that as a working-class boy, going off to Cambridge wasn't for him. He didn't believe in himself, but he did it, and the rest is history."
These are the words of former English teacher Stephen Harrington on the advice he gave to a 16-year-old Andy Burnham in 1986 at St Aelred's Catholic High School in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside.
The man, now widely tipped to win any Labour leadership contest and become prime minister, has credited his former teacher with boosting his confidence at that pivotal time in his life.
"My son has been saying to me 'you've changed history Dad', but he likes a good phrase," Harrington said.
Burnham said his former English teacher "lifted him" to achieve more than he thought possible
Burnham returned to Westminster last week as MP for Makerfield, after a by-election was triggered by the resignation of the constituency's Labour MP Josh Simons.
Following Sir Keir Starmer's announcement on Monday that he would step down, Burnham is currently the only candidate running in a leadership election in the Labour Party .
Burnham grew up in Culcheth, a quiet commuter belt village in Cheshire, near Warrington, having been born in Liverpool.
He was entering his first year of sixth form at the local Roman Catholic comprehensive, when he joined Harrington's A-Level English class.
Harrington described him as "really pleasant" and a "bright lad", who was modest.
"Here he was playing cricket for Lancashire Schoolboys, which is a very prestigious thing to do in this area, and he never mentioned it to me.
"He was never sort of showing off or anything like that, he actually kept that to himself."
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Burnham's ex-teacher on encouraging him to go to Cambridge
Spanish and maths were the other subjects Burnham was studying at St Aelred's, and he told people he was considering taking a linguistics degree at university.
But Harrington said he remembers convincing him to study English instead.
"He was so interested in the poet Tony Harrison. So I gave him a lot more material, including a cassette recording of one of Harrison's latest poems, called V."
Tony Harrison was a poet and playwright born in Leeds in 1937 who was famed for his controversial work.
Published in 1985, the poem contains obscenities and references to the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike and union leader Arthur Scargill, with a reference to the division between the political left and right.
V was later broadcast by Channel 4 in 1987, and caused such a reaction that a group of MPs called for a debate about it in the House of Commons .
Harrington said he thinks Harrison's work showed Burnham that poetry was not something reserved for the middle classes.
"That was really what turned Andrew towards studying English," he said.
Tony Harrison was famed for his, often controversial, poems and works which spoke to his working-class identity
When it came to choosing Cambridge, Harrington said Burnham was "very reluctant, he didn't think he would be good enough and all this kind of thing".
"It was very much 'I know that's not for people like me' and 'socially that's not me'."
Harrington said in some ways Burnham's fears about going to Cambridge University "came true".
"When he went there he told me he found it quite difficult for a while and did feel a bit out of place," he said.
"But nevertheless, he found his own group of friends and he came through."
Burnham studied English Literature at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a 2:1.
Burnham met his now-wife Marie-France van Heel during his time at Cambridge University
Most recently, The Mirror , external reported Burnham as having said his former teacher was an "amazing man" who he still speaks to.
"He couldn't be more thankful towards me," Harrington said of Burnham's praise, and remembered when the politician travelled from London to attend his retirement from St Aelred's in 2003.
Harrington said he is flattered by the praise, but he did not want to overstate his own importance on Burnham's journey.
Burnham with Tessa Jowell in 2009, when he was health secretary and she was minister for the Olympics and London
Earlier in his life, Burnham spent the majority of his childhood living on Common Lane in Culcheth.
The street is made up of big, detached, roomy properties with plenty of garden space and several houses are listed for sale with asking prices in excess of £1million.
Many of the houses surrounding the former Burnham family home are occupied by relative newcomers, but one couple remembered him and his two brothers, John and Nick, and in particular their love of football.
The former neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: "When we moved here, I think Andy would be maybe 16 or 17, so he was almost going away to university.
"The three boys played football in the garden, a lot, and their footballs came over into our garden, so we saw and heard them quite a lot."
Her husband recalled how even in his teenage years Burnham was a good communicator and "remembered people".
"We only really met him just before he went to university and he was obviously very good then, so he'd learned those skills quite early on," he said.
Danni, who lives close to Common Lane, said her son attended college with Burnham's niece and said she occasionally sees the Labour man in the local Sainsbury's store.
She said it was "really exciting" that someone who grew up in the village could become the country's next prime minister.
"He just seems like a very kind of down-to-earth guy and I think he's going to involve the north a bit more which is always nice, because it's always very south-centric isn't it down at Parliament."
A few doors down from Burnham's childhood home was Lindsay, who only recently moved to the area but remembered him from his time as MP for Leigh - before he left Westminster to run for Greater Manchester mayor.
"I think it's a good thing for the North, I do, hopefully, he'll do really well," she said.
"He's just always worked hard at what he's done and he deserves to be where he is.
"You used to see him walking down Bradshawgate in Leigh all the time, waiting for you to go and approach him."
Andy Burnham described the late MP Paul Goggins as his 'mentor'
Burnham has always remembered those who helped him, none more so than the late Paul Goggins, Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East.
Burnham described Goggins, who died in January 2014, as his mentor.
At Goggins' funeral, the then MP for Leigh and shadow health secretary, said: "Every time I had a problem when I was first elected, I would call Paul Goggins â who do I call now?"
Wyn Goggins, Paul's widow, said the pair "were very close friends â in addition to their politics they were northerners who shared the same faith and loved football".
"Paul helped Andy a lot when he was first elected."
While excited that Burnham could be PM she has mixed emotions at the prospect and said it will be "hard" seeing him come under increased media focus.
"His lovely family come under so much scrutiny but they are strong and he knows what happens in politics."
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POLITICSLib Dems face call for inquiry into deselection of election candidate
The Liberal Democrats are facing a call for an independent investigation into the deselection of one of their candidates before the last election.
The party has admitted it unlawfully discriminated against former BBC journalist David Campanale on the basis of his religious beliefs when he was stopped from standing in the Sutton and Cheam constituency in 2024.
A civil court in London will this week begin the process of deciding what damages and costs Campanale is due.
A party group, the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum, has called for an inquiry into the deselection.
A party spokesperson declined to comment on an ongoing case but said the party was "home to people of all faiths and none".
Campanale was selected as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the London seat at the end of 2021, before being deselected in the run-up to the general election in 2024 in favour of Luke Taylor, who went on to win the constituency for the party.
Among the claims made to the Central London County Court, Campanale said he was "mocked and abused" by party members in relation to his Christian beliefs, which are protected under the Equality Act.
He also claimed he was told not to campaign in certain wards where activists did not want him because they did not agree with his views on "matters of conscience".
The party has accepted his claim in full.
John Pugh, a former MP and spokesperson for the forum, said: "Launching an investigation would send a message that Liberal Democrats are serious about discrimination."
Campanale's case has also drawn support from the party's former leader Tim Farron MP.
In a statement he said that while he had always found the Liberal Democrats to be a "welcoming home" for all faiths, it was clear in this case that the party "did not get this right."
"It is right that the party now takes steps so that this can never be allowed to happen again - to anyone of any protected characteristic including Christians. And I will be pushing them to do just that."
Christianity is seen as dangerous - Farron
Lib Dems told to pay £14,000 to ex-candidate
Separately the group Liberal Voice for Women, which says it campaigns "to ensure that women's sex-based rights, representation, and voices are fully respected within the party", has threatened it could raise concerns about discrimination within the Liberal Democrats' ranks with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The group's chair Zoe Hollowood wrote to the party's chief executive Mike Dixon this week arguing that complaints raised by its members were being dismissed while complaints about them are "routinely" progressed.
Under the Equality Act, religion or belief, including holding gender critical views, can be protected from discrimination.
The Act applies to Great Britain. Northern Ireland has separate equality legislation.
If a review of the party's complaints system by its Federal Audit and Scrutiny Committee is not completed by September, the letter says, it should be handed to an independent external reviewer and completed by the end of the year.
It is understood the party's chief executive has responded to say he will prioritise support for completing the review.
Last year the party was ordered to pay £14,000 to Natalie Bird, a former parliamentary candidate who says she was driven out of the party and barred from standing as an MP over her gender-critical views.
And in 2024 an anonymous parliamentary researcher crowd-funded more than £11,000 to bring an employment tribunal case against an unnamed Liberal Democrat MP arguing she had been dismissed after voicing her belief that "sex is real, immutable and important".
It is understood the case has since been settled out of court.
A party spokesperson said: "The Liberal Democrats are home to people of all faiths and none, including many Christians.
"Three Liberal Democrat MPs in neighbouring seats to Sutton and Cheam are practising Christians including party leader Ed Davey."
SPORTSEngland labour past Panama to qualify for last 32 as group winners
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Goals from Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane help England secure a 2-0 win over Panama, as Thomas Tuchel's side qualify for the World Cup last 32 as winners of Group L.
MATCH REPORT: Panama 0-2 England - Group L
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STARTUPSTech firms are blaming AI for mega device and console price rises
For years, buyers of tech could rely on a familiar trend - that older devices would get cheaper over time.
That now seems to have stopped, or in some cases, completely reversed.
Apple and Microsoft's Xbox have joined the firms hiking prices for devices and games consoles which are years old.
They and other tech companies have pointed to the rising cost of crucial components needed to build their machines, laying the blame on AI.
Compute-hungry data centres, which power AI, need more and more chips to keep up with demand from AI companies - which means the demand for them is far outstripping supply.
Some people have called it "Ramageddon" - as random access memory (Ram), a once-cheap part of any computer, has now shot up in price.
But big tech's Ram woes are failing to gain the sympathy of many consumers facing eye-watering costs for barely-new electronics.
Apple has raised the prices of its tablets and laptops by nearly 20%.
The news was swiftly followed by Microsoft saying it would yet again raise the price of its five-year-old Xbox Series S and X consoles by at least $100 (£75.70).
The pricing changes, which will take effect from August, are its third in just over a year - and see the cost of a new console be 30% to 40% more expensive than it was this time last year.
"Xbox with another hardware price increase? I gotta laugh to keep from crying," wrote one X user , external reacting to Xbox's console price hikes. "My favorite hobby is cooked."
On Reddit, another user responding to the news said Xbox "may as well just cancel" its upcoming console Helix "because no one will be able to afford it".
Investors may not have been too overjoyed, either.
Apple's share price took a tumble following the announcement of its price bumps on Thursday.
Yang Wang, principal analyst at Counterpoint Research, called the memory crisis "the most disruptive supply-side event the smartphone industry has ever faced".
The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were "better positioned to weather the disruption".
But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks , amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales.
And these companies are by no means alone.
Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2's price globally from September.
Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected , starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs.
It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May.
The companies blame AI.
Apple's announcement on Thursday, which cited an "unprecedented challenge" with memory chips facing the industry, has been seen by several analysts as indicating that the cost of massive AI investment is finally coming to bear.
It is no secret that AI developers are seeking to capitalise on excitement about generative AI tech, claiming it can deliver productivity boosts and help firms make more profit.
But to do so means building giant data centres filled with racks of powerful servers to enable high-speed processing of heavy AI workloads.
They use some of the same raw ingredients needed to make our smaller consumer devices, such as computer chips.
Apple's new, more budget-friendly line of Neo laptops were among its products given higher price tags this week
Once an affordable component used to build devices, Ram prices more than doubled in price between October 2025 and the start of 2026 .
"The race to build out AI data centres is resulting in a swift and significant increase in demand that chip makers are rushing to meet," said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at investment firm AJ Bell.
She said such demand was enabling big chip makers such as TSMC to raise prices "knowing that customers are vying with each other for production capacity".
Prices of popular memory kits like DDR4 and its bandwidth-boosting successor the DDR5 have shot up accordingly.
According to Counterpoint Research, some 32GB DDR5 components for PCs jumped from $94 in the three months to September 2025 to $127 in the next three months.
In the first quarter of 2026, spanning the start January to the end of March, the same components had soared 122% to $282.
Since then Dram, which provides a sort of short term memory for devices to facilitate what you do on them in real-time, and Nand flash - long-term memory that stores data even when a device is turned off - have climbed further in price.
RSM UK's tech senior analyst James Bull noted that the four largest US tech firms are expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centres and AI equipment in 2026.
"That level of demand for memory chips has created a shortage the supply chain cannot keep pace with," he said.
With big tech and AI firms buying memory at scale, and able to pay a premium for longer contracts, manufacturers were also being incentivised to prioritise their orders over consumer electronics, Bull added.
"Essentially, the MacBook on consumers' desks is now competing for the same Dram as the data centres powering ChatGPT and is losing."
Of course, some of the big tech companies, such as Microsoft, have a foot in both camps - investing billions in AI infrastructure while also making consumer products such as the Xbox.
But the memory shortage and price rises have also been compounded by inflation and geopolitical issues, say some.
When Sony announced further price increases to the PS5 console in the UK and elsewhere around the world, it cited "continued pressures in the global economic landscape".
Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis said at the time that alongside rising Ram prices, further waves of inflation linked to the war in Iran might have influenced the scale of Sony's price increases.
Hewson told the BBC more recent price hikes could "go even higher as chip makers deal with increased costs resulting from the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz".
"Whilst the last few days have brought renewed optimism that the situation in the Middle East is being resolved, the impact of the last couple of months means some inflation is now baked in," she added.
How the Iran war affects your money and bills
However, some have been more cynical about big tech firms reaping billions in annual revenue putting up product prices.
Prominent left-wing US senator Bernie Sanders was among those criticising Apple's move on Thursday - writing in a post on X that it amounted to "corporate greed".
Apple reported its revenue in the last three months of 2025 rose by 16% compared to the same period the previous year to $144bn (£109bn) - its strongest growth since 2021.
But the tech giant is not alone in raising prices, with many analyst firms expecting others will follow suit.
Counterpoint's VP of research Neil Shah expects a "constrained supply situation" to last for as long as two years.
Not all companies are suffering, though.
The AI boom has created a windfall of sorts for some chip makers, including American company Micron, which reported on Wednesday that its quarterly revenue had quadrupled.
"Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand," Micron's boss Sanjay Mehrotra told investors on Wednesday , external .
In the mean time, gamers and tech fans can expect prices to stay high - or even continue to rise.
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