Football’s coming home? Burnham plots UK World Cup bid

The move would bring the World Cup back to the UK for the first time since England hosted in 1966.  

Burnham told colleagues at a Friday morning meeting at No 10 North he is planning a World Cup bid, The i Paper can reveal.

Plans are underway

He said he is already in talks with the nation’s footballing bodies about how to run the campaign.

Prioritising the North

He also wants to put on a “Northern Olympics” and bring the 2035 Ryder Cup to Bolton.

The UK has only hosted the World Cup once

It makes you wonder whether the authorities at the European and global level have something against us. The country that invented the game, you’d think we would have had a bit more of that attention

Andy Burnham told the  podcast

A coalition of Northern mayors has been pressing for a multi-city Olympic and Paralympic bid, arguing the Games should be used to rebalance the distribution of major events and investment away from London.

Burnham has said it would not be “fair or right” for London to host the Olympics for a fourth time and has backed a Northern Games as “what Britain needs right now”.

First meeting of No 10 North

The meeting in which Burnham discussed his Men’s World Cup plans was the first virtual “situation room” held through No 10 North. This is his new base for bringing Whitehall and local leaders together and was focused on giving mayors more power, expertise and resources to deliver investment in their areas.

Inside the UK’s youth unemployment capital

On the surface, the Birmingham suburb of Erdington seems like a typical small town, with a handful of pubs and a somewhat bustling centre complete with a Greggs and a B&M.

• Erdington, near Birmingham, has the highest rate of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) in the country.
• 16.2 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are on unemployment benefits.
• The national average is just 5.7 per cent.

What young people told us

It makes me feel worthless. I spend two or three hours a day looking for work online, and then I’ll spend another two hours going out handing CVs every day

Will Butler, 18, finished college in July

Young people overlooked

Companies don’t really want to hire young people… they want to hire the person with the most experience

Lewis McKeirnan, 18

Businesses struggling too

But small business owners in Erdington told The i Paper they could hardly afford to pay their own salaries, let alone take on a young trainee.

Kamlesh Bali, who runs a newsagent, said she and her husband work from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, because they cannot afford to take on another member of staff. “What we take in, it’s very hard for us, and to pay a wage as well, we struggle as it is as a small shop,” she said.

• Ministers are also expanding their nationwide Youth Guarantee, with a £2.5bn package including 300,000 new work and training placements for young people and financial incentives of up to £3,000 for employers who hire and train eligible young jobseekers.

English is lit! Great Expectations rewritten by AI in Gen Z slang

‘I call myself Pip. It’s not a name with much rizz’

One of the great classics, written by Charles Dickens, has been modernised – but it’s not aimed at children studying the text in class.

• The Dickens classic has been fed into the AI model Claude Opus 4 to produce “Bare Expectations”.
• The shortened adaption uses the slang of teenagers today, using words like “ick” and “drip”.
• It was made by Tesco Mobile, in partnership with author Chloe Combi, to help parents better understand their children and keep them safe online.
• It was also read as an audio book by Allan Mustafa, from Kurupt FM.

Classic for the modern age

You’d think the best MC in the galaxy would know all the latest slang, and I do. If any kid tells you otherwise, they’re lying. Any words I don’t know are just not cool enough for me to care about! 

Allan Mustafa, MC Grindah from Kurupt FM, told Retail Times.

But 77 per cent of parents worry about their online safety. One in four parents felt unprepared when giving their child their first phone. More than half are confused by their child’s language at least once a week.

But campaigners say the best way to keep children safe online is by not giving them a smartphone in the first place.

Are Channel crossing numbers down?

The French authorities have become more “effective” at stopping migrants crossing in dangerous small boats across the Channel, the UK Government has said.

The figures compared to last year

5%

The increase in the number of small boats intercepted in the last three months compared with last year.

The Home Office said, citing French figures, that since April, 61 per cent of small boats have been intercepted.

The deal agreed by the UK and France in April.

This includes £161m in performance-based targets.

In the past few weeks, three boats were stopped – two of which were at sea.

Numbers falling

Some 15,897 migrants have crossed the Channel, 43 per cent down on the same period last year.

Last month, a record 165 migrants reached the UK in a single boat.

“People smugglers should be in no doubt, we’re taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good,” said Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.