Burnham wins Makerfield. Now comes his real battle

Boy, 3, thrown to crocodiles at UK zoo | ‘I lost 4st through walking’

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Friday, 19 June 2026 Issue No. 481

Good morning. The easy part for Andy Burnham is done: he has won the Makerfield by-election. The eyebrow-raising element was the scale of the victory, increasing Labour’s majority despite the challenge of Reform UK. Tony Diver, our Political Editor, says Burnham’s next task is not so straightforward. He now has to pull together a credible team and policy plan for the inevitable fight for Downing Street. Burnham has a mountain to climb, and he’s only at the foothills. Chris Evans, Editor P.S. We have an exclusive offer running for email readers. Subscribe today and try a year of The Telegraph for just £1.99 per month. If you’re already a subscriber make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.   In today’s edition Boy, 3, thrown to crocodiles at UK zoo — Age gaps in marriages are out – how does yours compare? — Plus, ‘I lost 4st through walking. You don’t need fancy gyms or harsh diets’

One year for just £1.99 per month Explore the full range of our free-thinking journalism with our email-exclusive offer Subscribe now   Makerfield is just the start. Burnham’s real battle begins now Andy Burnham wins with more than 50 per cent of the vote Tony Diver Political Editor   “They have voted for hope,” Andy Burnham declared this morning, as his stonking by-election victory increased Labour’s majority in Makerfield and set him on the path to No 10. It could not have been a better result for the Manchester mayor who needed proof that he could defeat Reform UK to stand a chance of beating Sir Keir Starmer to the Labour leadership. The constituency may have voted for hope, but MPs back in Westminster will be asking what, exactly, they are hoping for. Burnham now has the even tougher challenge of putting together a credible team and policy prospectus for the inevitable fight for Downing Street. It will not be as easy as it seems. Meanwhile, Reform’s meagre 35 per cent of the vote in Makerfield will raise questions for Nigel Farage, who secured every seat in this constituency at May’s local elections and has now gone backwards. Is Burnham truly the man who can beat Reform nationwide? Or is his victory based only on his strong local popularity and message of protest against the Starmer administration? Starmer’s allies are already suggesting that Burnham should call a general election if he strays too far from Labour’s 2024 manifesto in a leadership contest, warning that “chaos” would follow if the party changes its leader. This result makes Burnham the most high-profile by-election winner since Sir Winston Churchill romped back to the Commons in 1924 after two years in the wilderness. For Labour MPs and voters across Britain, he now has much to live up to. Continue reading Tony’s analysis here ➤ Labour’s newest MP is scheduled to address Labour Party members later this morning. We’ll bring you what he has to say and all the best reaction, comment and analysis in From the Editor PM this afternoon, and don’t miss the special edition of Frontbencher this morning. You can sign up to both here. Plus, go deeper with our coverage: • Catch up on the full story here ➤ • Follow our coverage of the live reaction here ➤ • Who could replace Starmer as the next Prime Minister? ➤ • What an Andy Burnham premiership would look like ➤   Opinion Tom Harris Burnham’s stunning victory has pulled Labour back from the brink The Prime Minister is surely doomed, but the party’s demise no longer looks like an inevitability Continue reading ➤     Stephen Daisley The fight for the Right has just begun, and Farage may not win it Continue reading ➤     Allister Heath Britain is heading for an early general election, and I fear Burnham would win Continue reading ➤     To make sure you don’t miss our newsletters when they land in your inbox, click here. Headlines Russian warship risks refuelling disaster in Channel Andrew stalker researched Princess Charlotte and killing methods EU citizens handed asylum benefits Ten-year-old gamers flagged to anti-terror police Starmer launches war on gazumping World cup diary Marcus Rashford’s battle with ‘enemy’ Anthony Gordon Jason Burt Chief Football Correspondent, in Dallas   Thomas Tuchel has cast Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford as England’s on-pitch rivals, and their battle for a starting place is already shaping up to be one of the big stories of the World Cup. Just days after Gordon secured a dream move to Barcelona, Rashford responded with a goal from the bench against Croatia, ending a three-year wait for a non-penalty England goal. Tuchel believes the competition between the pair can drive standards higher. With England preparing to face Ghana, Gordon’s place in the side suddenly looks far less secure. Read the full story ➤ By putting Emma Hayes in a kitchen set for her in-game tactical analysis, ITV may have been trying to troll the trolls but it has backfired Elsewhere, my colleague Kathryn Batte has tackled what became an unexpected talking point from England’s opener. She points out that while it was not surprising to see ITV lean into Emma Hayes’s insightful analysis during the mind-numbing hydration breaks, it is unfathomable that the broadcaster did not foresee the issue of Hayes giving that analysis on a chalkboard in what looks like a makeshift kitchen. Continue reading ➤   Essential reads The crocodile enclosure at Johnsons Zoo, near Huntingdon Boy, 3, thrown to crocodiles at UK zoo A three-year-old boy is in a critical condition after he was thrown into a crocodile enclosure at a Cambridgeshire zoo. Police said they arrested a 30-year-old British man from Norfolk on suspicion of attempted murder after the incident at Johnsons Zoo, near Huntingdon. The suspect and the boy were not believed to have known each other. The Telegraph has spoken to witnesses, and one told us how the actions of one person, believed to be the zoo owner’s wife, may have saved the boy after she ran into the enclosure to pull him from the water. Continue reading ➤   Smoke billows over Moscow following a huge wave of UAV strikes How Ukraine found a way through Moscow’s air defences It was Russia that ushered in a new era of mass drone warfare when it bombarded Kyiv with a swarm of drones in October 2022. However, Ukraine has just beaten Vladimir Putin at his own game, destroying a Moscow oil refinery and unleashing black rain across the city. Volodymyr Zelensky deployed 992 fixed-wing drones at the Russian capital, identifying the city’s air-defence weak spots before overwhelming those areas with a huge volume of drones in quick succession. Now, Russia is seeking revenge. This report is available only to subscribers ➤ Plus: Russia vows ‘massive’ retaliation for largest attack on Moscow since war began ➤   Age gaps in marriages are out – so how does yours compare? Not represented here are all other weddings, where the bride and groom were aged between 1 and 9 years apart | Source: ONS Half a century ago, twice as many Britons tied the knot. Today, Ollie Corfe details how we are marrying much later, and why the wider age gaps of the Catherine Zeta-Jones era are firmly out of fashion. Yet one specific group of men refuses to abandon old habits. See where your own relationship stands. For subscribers only ➤   ‘You are truly your father’s daughter,’ Tina Sinatra recalls her mother once telling her Tina Sinatra: ‘Cancel Frank? Impossible!’ Frank Sinatra’s youngest daughter, Tina, was still a baby when her father abandoned his young family for the film star Ava Gardner, precipitating a crisis that would almost end his career. More than 75 years later, she tells Chris Harvey why a new musical she’s backing, packed with the old crooner’s immortal hits, does not shy away from his womanising, violent temper and links to the Mob. Continue reading ➤     Seize the day ‘I lost 4st through walking. You don’t need fancy gyms or harsh diets’ Lisa Buck before and after her weight loss, which she achieved by working 30 minutes of Japanese interval walking into her day At 61, writes Lisa Buck, I was four stone overweight and unable to move due to terrible pain from a slipped disc. Housebound and unsure how long the wait for a consultation would be, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try walking to the end of my street. The first attempt was so painful that I had to use a stick, but I could feel the positivity lift inside me afterwards. This small task became a daily habit that helped me lose weight without really trying. Continue reading ➤ Here is another article that I hope you’ll find helpful this morning: The knee is the joint most commonly affected by osteoarthritis. Here are six ways midlifers are wrecking their knee health, according to a surgeon.   Reviews of the week Twenty-five albums in, the Rolling Stones are still rock’s most thrilling band Despite their ages, the now-trio – from left, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood – are still gathering no moss Pop The Rolling Stones: Foreign Tongues ★★★★★ “This never gets old!” Mick Jagger barks, deep into the Rolling Stones’ 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues. It turns out he’s right. Jagger, 82, and his two surviving bandmates may have a combined age of 243 years, but there is more than enough vitality, wit, richness and joy on offer here to suggest that the Stones remain rock’s greatest advocates. Read Neil McCormick’s full review ➤ Film Toy Story 5 ★★★★☆ Pixar’s signature franchise was built on a premise that once felt indestructible: toys live, kids love them and both eventually have to grow up. How do you make a Toy Story film for a young audience whose most treasured possessions are no longer dolls and figurines but tablets and phones? The warm and wry but also unmistakably anxious Toy Story 5 is the studio’s answer, and it’s a rather good one. Read Robbie Collin’s full review ➤ Television Invasion of the Parakeets ★★☆☆☆ Do you dislike the way parakeets monopolise the bird feeder, peck at your fruit trees and make an awful din? I’m afraid you might be racist. At least, that’s one of the arguments made by Chris Packham in Invasion of the Parakeets, a barmy documentary that draws a parallel between green parrots and asylum seekers. Read Anita Singh’s full review ➤   Your say Anti-Aperol Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal reader correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes... I don’t share Lisa Hilton’s intense dislike of Aperol spritz – I’ll drink it if you insist, and probably even if you don’t – but this particular aperitivo has certainly lost some of its allure for me since I first tried it, probably about a decade ago. Once so bright and refreshing, it began to taste a little more cloying each time: all that prosecco. Today, the sight of those glowing orange glasses popping up everywhere as soon as summer gets going can feel just faintly oppressive. There are other warm-weather tipples, after all.   That was certainly the view of Charlotte Cappin: “Praise the Lord – somebody who dislikes Aperol spritzes as much as I do. Campari any day, please, or other vermouths.”   Not a bad shout. For L Shipman, meanwhile: “Pimm’s is so much nicer.”   Stuart McClelland was also a firm refusenik: “I tried it once in Rome – I took one mouthful and handed it back to the waitress. She brought me a pint and didn’t charge. An awful drink.”   Other readers weren’t so down on it, though. One wrote: “It’s just a bit of fun. We first had Aperol spritz in Sardinia about 10 years ago. It still reminds us of sunshine and holidays. Now we use Select (much punchier flavour) with a decent sparkling wine, ‘proper’ soda water and a slice of orange.”   Christopher Hanson favourited a slightly different method: “I discovered Aperol about two years ago and I love it. I admit to leaving the soda out, though. My early drinking days were based on Tetley’s and Joseph Holt’s Bitter – two very hoppy brews. “As I have aged, my palate has changed, and I now prefer fruitier – but not sweet – beers. The same is true of wine. Today I like chardonnay and viognier rather than sauvignon blanc. So I find Aperol spritz a delightful aperitivo – but it should not be drunk with a meal.” Will you be raising a spritz this evening? Send your replies here and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of this newsletter. Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name.   On this day 1829 | Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London, the city’s first modern police force 1970 | Edward Heath forms his government, with Margaret Thatcher in the Cabinet (see our front page below) 1991 | Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar surrenders to police Birthdays: Zoe Saldaña (48), Boris Johnson (62), Salman Rushdie (79) Plus, in the news today, a Labour council fined a woman for dropping a kale leaf in a trolley. How much did they try to charge her? Monica Serro with the kale leaf for which she was fined 1. £250 2. £150 3. £100 4. £75 Click one of the options to reveal the answer...   Puzzles Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.   Yesterday’s Panagram was IMPROMPTU. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.   Please let me know what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here. Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor One year for just £1.99 per month Explore the full range of our free-thinking journalism with our email-exclusive offer Subscribe now

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