The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, has urged the prime minister to “stand up to Trump” after the US president imposed a fresh round of tariffs on more than 80 countries.

Ranging from 10% to 12.5%, the new tariffs take effect today as a temporary levy on global imports expired.

As my colleague Gaya Gupta explains here: “It’s Donald Trump’s latest effort to continue imposing global levies without congressional approval, despite the supreme court ruling in February that found the US president had illegally used his executive power to implement his global trade policies.”

In a post on X, Davey said: “Donald Trump is doubling down on his reckless trade war, after his last tariff tantrum was ruled illegal.

“He’s a bully and an unreliable ally.

“We can’t have continuity Starmer. Andy Burnham must stand up to Trump.”

For more updates on US politics, follow our live blog here:

Andy Burnham has defended the cost of opening No 10 North in Manchester, telling “London-based” critics that it’s better to have “a north pole that balances the south pole”.

Speaking to staff at the new centre, he said: “At least it creates that sense of a more balanced country, and that big things can be done from here.”

Heron House is temporarily accommodating No 10 North while a brownfield site just outside the city is being developed, where it is expected to relocate permanently once construction is complete.

As my colleagues Hannah Al-Othman and Priya Bharadia reported earlier this month, any “No 10” buildings “could be constructed without significant cost above that already signed off by the Treasury”.

On other costs, they wrote:

Dai Davies, a former head of royal protection and a former divisional commander in the Metropolitan police, dubbed Burnham’s Manchester base as “Number 10A”.

“Number 10A will have to be strengthened,” he said, “and, of course, there’ll have to be a 24-hour-7 protection. So it’s going to cost us taxpayers millions in terms of technical security, surveillance, cameras.

“Depending on where it is, it may have to have underground detection systems, it probably will have to have a safe room, and Manchester police will have to bear the burden of protection, in the uniform sense, 24-7, I suspect. So the real cost is many millions of pounds.”

Read more here:

Andy Burnham has described his first day at No 10 North in Manchester as the “best day of my life”.

Speaking to staff and ministers at the newly opened centre of government in Heron House in the city centre, the prime minister said:

I cannot tell you what a proud moment this is. I think this might be the best day of my life. I’m not joking either. I know you think I am, but I’m not.

Things are just completely coming full circle here for me, and to be here with you all in the heart of Manchester this Friday morning, at the end of a fairly big week, is just everything to me.

It’s almost exactly 35 years since I left this city as a recently graduated young man who couldn’t find a job in the city. It was in a pretty bad place at that time, it’s fair to say, the 80s had turned into the 90s, there wasn’t much.

That really is an experience that I’ve never forgotten, my generation of people growing up here. And it’s true of places all over the country to get on in life, you had to leave where you were, because things weren’t here.

He added that No 10 North was about “putting power in every postcode”.

Andy Burnham has arrived by police convoy at No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester:

The Welsh first minister said he has a “Celtic alliance” with his counterpart in Scotland, as he visited Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, PA reports.

Rhun ap Iorwerth said Plaid Cymru worked closely with John Swinney’s SNP, and that he was “optimistic” after meeting prime minister Andy Burnham yesterday.

Iorwerth’s party won the May election in Wales and, with an SNP win in Scotland and Sinn Féin holding the first minister role in Northern Ireland, all of the UK’s devolved nations have independence-supporting parties in power.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme this morning, where he was asked about the relationship between nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Iorwerth said: “I think we have a Celtic alliance. I work closely with John Swinney …

“I have a good relationship. My party and the SNP were often referred to as sister parties.

“We have worked together at Westminster for many years prior to devolution, and we work closely now.”

The Times has reported this morning that Andy Burnham is expected to “move quickly” to scale up North Sea oil and gas production as part of his policy blitz to tackle the cost of living.

Industry sources suggested to the newspaper that the prime minister and his new energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, are considering approving oil and gas production at the Jackdaw and Rosebank sites off the coast of Scotland to help drive down costs this winter.

A source said: “Once we are past the consultation phase, the ball is in their court. From the sounds of it, there is willingness to move quickly this time around.

“An August approval would allow production to commence by October 1. Everything is constructed, the platform is in place, it’s just a piece of paper standing in the way.”

As the Guardian’s environment correspondent Sandra Laville writes in her profile of the new energy secretary, Fahnbulleh was a surprising choice for the role, especially given her previous apparent opposition to new drilling in the North Sea while she was head of the New Economics Foundation (NEF) thinktank.

Sandra says:

In a joint report with Friends of the Earth in 2021, her organisation called for a total end to new drilling in the North Sea basin, the cancellation of all future licensing rounds, the revocation of all undeveloped licences and the rejection of any applications for development consent. Today, those who collaborated with her in the past are watching her first steps closely.

“She must hold the line against harmful fossil fuel expansion – including the highly contentious Jackdaw and Rosebank fields – make cheap, clean energy available to all and build on Ed Miliband’s efforts to scale up our renewable power capacity,” said Imogen Dow, energy lead for Friends of the Earth.”

You can read the profile here:

A review of the early prisoner release scheme ordered by Andy Burnham could be conducted “in the coming days and weeks”, a minister has said.

The prime minister hit pause on the scheme that would allow thousands of prisoners in England and Wales to be released early from September after criticism from survivors and victims’ families.

Burnham ordered an urgent review into the scheme, saying he wanted to “minimise risk to the public”.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Sally Jameson, a junior housing minister and former prison officer, said: “I think the justice ministers have said that the urgent review will be conducted in the coming days and weeks to make sure that we have a timely response to that, so that the prison system and the criminal justice system can react and cope accordingly.”

The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, has said the new Andy Burnham administration is on “borrowed time” to turn the country around.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Rayner said the flurry of announcements made by the new prime minister – cap on bus fares, VAT cut on electricity bills and support for pubs and clubs – showed he understood the frustration over the cost of living.

“We’re on borrowed time if we don’t get a move on and I think Andy acknowledged that,” she said. “As prime minister he stood on the streets of Downing Street without notes and spoke directly to the public and said ‘we get it, I get the frustration’.”

Turning to housing policy, Rayner said the Government’s goal to build 1.5m homes in this parliament is “a really difficult stretched target” but insisted she is not dropping it.

She said: “It certainly got more challenging, and we’ve seen things like construction costs go up etc, which has had a real negative impact on that.

“But I’m not dropping it. I’m just saying that it is a really difficult stretched target.”

Earlier on BBC Breakfast, Rayner said she is not looking at bringing in rent controls.

She said changes made through renters’ rights legislation brought in under Labour so far “are already having a significant impact on the market”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said: “We won’t be looking at rent controls if that’s what you’re getting at at the moment.

“That is not something that we’re looking to do because we’ve seen what’s happened in areas like Scotland. It hasn’t necessarily brought rents down.”

On Monday, while the cameras were fixed on that famous black door in Downing Street, something important was happening 165 miles away. A small team of officials and advisers were walking into an office building in Manchester to set about the remaking of the British state.

This was the beginning of No 10 North: the first major act of this government and what I hope will be seen as its most defining.

Over the course of the past 40 years, Britain has taken a series of wrong turns. In the 1980s, political power was centralised, economic power was privatised and communities were deindustrialised. Many of the places most affected have not recovered since and are still in decline. They have been unable to turn things around because they simply do not have the necessary power to do so. This feeling of neglect has lain underneath the increasingly fractious politics that has bedevilled Britain in recent times.

Solving this problem is crucial for the cohesion of our country. It is something with which it has wrestled for a long time but never got right. We have seen gimmicks, such as levelling up. We have seen the shifting of bits of the British state around the map to no great effect.

Why has none of it worked? It is partly because, even though Whitehall departments have set up outposts, decision-making power has remained in London. It is also because, in the very centre of government itself, Nos 10 and 11 have not been sufficiently aligned – particularly on growth.

This is what No 10 North is seeking to correct and, if we succeed, it could bring the much-needed sea change in the way Britain is run.

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