The home crowd swooned to Andy’s mood music, even if some of it could have been a Keir cover version

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There’s no pleasing some people. For most of last week, all the opposition parties were moaning that Andy Burnham had taken a vow of silence ever since the Makerfield byelection. That no one had a clue just what the prime minister designate had in mind.

On Monday, Andy sought to answer some of those questions, but before he had opened his mouth, Kemi Badenoch accused him of trying to avoid the scrutiny of MPs. He should be doing this from the dispatch box, she said. Um … except he’s not a minister. Maybe she plans to give him a guest slot from the opposition benches. There again, she was also saying that all his plans were bound to fail long before he had even told us what they were. Never change, Kemi. Just keep saying the first thing that comes into your head.

In The Good Life, To the Manor Born and beyond, the star played domineering snobs with pinpoint comic timing – yet she still made them feel like old friends. No one will do it better

At their broadest, and most audience-friendly, sitcoms thrive on stock characters: chancers, jobsworths, slobs and snobs. No actor has ever been more suited to the last than Penelope Keith. Others have played funny snobs, but she was a walking colour chart of snobbery. Her greatest strength was her ability to always locate a new variation on the same theme, picking out any number of tones and nuances to give each of her characters more life than their writers probably anticipated.

The big one, of course, was Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life, which ran from 1975 to 1978. On paper, her role was simply to provide contrast. Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal played the leads, Tom and Barbara, two self-sufficient dreamers in frayed clothes who were never happier than when they had dirt under their fingernails. By design, Keith was meant to represent the opposite; stiffer and more materialistic and appalled by anyone who didn’t follow social convention to the letter.

Novels were starting to seem like a thing of the past for me, until I found a book I couldn’t put down. Is there anything better?

I never decided to stop reading novels; I just fell out of the loop. You need to meet a few basic conditions to disappear into a story: a medium amount of patience, some free time, enough inner peace that a made-up person’s tribulations are more engrossing than your own. You need to stop worrying about the world, stop making to-do lists, stop reading nonfiction about trade wars and regular wars, stop rewatching old episodes of The West Wing with your kid in a bid to explain, over hours of whip-smart dialogue, how the political philosophy of the third way leads really slowly but directly to the coming of the fascist overlords.

Spend enough time in no fit state for fiction and it becomes your thing: someone will ask whether you’ve read The Safekeep, and rather than simply say, “Not yet,” you’ll say, “I don’t really read novels any more because, come on, that person didn’t really walk into a room. That person is imaginary.”

Despite disappointments we remain indebted to an all-round talent for transforming the way in which Test cricket is played

Last year I completed a book on England’s cricket captains since Mike Brearley and the final chapter was devoted to Ben Stokes. It began with the observation: “There is jeopardy here.” It ended with the conclusion: “I would be hard pressed to name anyone in the last few decades who has done more than Ben Stokes to keep a format [Test cricket], still beloved by so many, alive.”

Jeopardy and Stokes have been frequent bedfellows, on the field and off it. My jeopardy came in having to assess Stokes the captain before the Ashes series last winter given that there is a long tradition of deciding the merit of England captains based upon their results against Australia. We know now it did not go so well; we also have an idea of how much torment it brought him. Yet I’m still content with those pre-Ashes observations. Of course there is always jeopardy with Stokes. We have never known what he would do next (which now includes his sudden decision to retire from international cricket). Moreover, despite the recent disappointments, I think he remains one of the best captains England have had – to the amazement of most of us.

Trump, laying siege to freedoms and truth itself, is twisting America’s milestone birthday into a joyless occasion

• Americans: how do you feel about the country’s future after 250 years of independence?

• Tell us: were you born on 4 July?

This is the room where it happened. The assembly room at Independence Hall in Philadelphia where, 250 years ago this week, a group of sweating, treasonous men broke from the most powerful empire since ancient Rome. Amid a summer of trial and error, delegates including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson ratified a flawed but aspirational document to declare their independence from the British crown. The date was 4 July 1776 – but it took nearly a month for all 56 delegates of the Second Continental Congress to formally sign on.

“I don’t blame them,” Maggie Burkett, a park ranger, told a group of about 40 tourists as they gazed at green baize tables adorned with books, letters, pipes and candles one recent afternoon. “These words on this page are treason, just as much as burning the king’s coats of arms was. By signing this document, you are literally risking your life. The 56 men who signed this document were brave. In my opinion, they were heroes.”

Mothers and fathers have healthier, younger-looking brains, according to recent studies. It must be all those years of mental and emotional gymnastics

Good news, fellow parents: our children may have laid waste to our finances, pelvic integrity and circadian rhythms, and mocked our new sandals so devastatingly we can never wear them again, but a series of studies reported in New Scientist suggest parenting “may permanently improve brain health for Mum and Dad”. In one study, mothers with more children showed patterns associated with younger brains; another of nearly 38,000 people found “mothers and fathers have younger-looking brains”.

This is unexpected. I feel as though parenting reduced me to a cognitive husk: the lyrics to Here Comes a Digger – a rare groove from a DVD my elder son briefly enjoyed in 2005 – long ago supplanting the whereabouts of my keys, informed political opinions and the ability to form coherent sentences. I’m only fit for three things now: worrying, laundry and snacks.

Expected next prime minister focuses on restoring faith in politics, cost of living and devolution in major speech

• What is Andy Burnham’s economic and political blueprint for Britain?

Andy Burnham has set out his blueprint to transform the UK with a promise to improve living standards and restore faith in politics through the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen”.

The person widely expected to be the next prime minister said the current system was “broken” and that “more of the same” would not be enough to tackle the significant challenges faced by the country.

A long-term ambition of greater public control of essential services such as water, housing, energy and transport to help curb the cost of living.

A No 10 North hub to oversee the distribution of power and resources from Whitehall across the country, which the Guardian revealed would be run by his former chief executive in Manchester.

The biggest council housing building programme since the postwar period, and a high street “renaissance” through reform of business rates.

Rebalancing an education system that he said had been too focused on the university route and putting academic and technical courses on an equal footing.

Pay will be 35.2% higher on average compared with four years ago after series of strikes that have cost NHS £1bn

Resident doctors in England have voted to accept a new government deal on pay and jobs, bringing an end to strike action that has cost the NHS £1bn since last summer.

It comes after the British Medical Association called off a strike at the last minute earlier this month to put the offer to members.

Former parliamentary private secretary to Rishi Sunak admits offence relating to betting on date of 2024 election

A former Conservative MP who was Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide when he was prime minster has pleaded guilty to cheating at gambling with bets on the date of the 2024 general election.

Craig Williams, who was the MP for Montgomeryshire and, earlier, Cardiff North, admitted in court to using confidential information to place bets on the timing of the contest.

Jacob Wulfson, who strangled woman he met online, was allowed to be tried at airbase court martial instead of facing UK justice

• Bizarre questions and an all-male ‘jury’: woman strangled by US pilot in Britain tells of airbase trial

• Explainer: how the US bypasses British courts

A police force in England is facing mounting questions over its decision to allow the US military to prosecute the case of a woman who was strangled by an American fighter pilot in his apartment in Cambridge city centre.

Cambridgeshire police has acknowledged that in the days after the assault in 2023, it allowed the US military to take “investigative primacy” in the case, despite the fact the crime took place within the force’s territory and when the pilot was off duty.