Our exclusive behind-the-scenes access at No 10 as Andy Burnham became PM "You can clap now," a Downing Street official with a clipboard instructed the staff eagerly lining the halls of No 10 in the moments before the new prime minister walked in. The applause duly began before the famous door opened, so the first sight and sound to greet Andy Burnham and his wife were crowds of clapping staff, crammed into the Downing Street hall. They stretched up the long corridor all the way to the door of the Cabinet Room - left ajar for him to walk straight in and get down to work. I've seen plenty of prime ministers come and go from outside No 10. But I'd never been allowed inside at that moment before , able to hover outside the Cabinet Room and grab a quick word with the country's new leader at such an intense, symbolic time. I have rarely seen a politician look as thoroughly delighted as Burnham, pride bursting out of his buttoned-up suit - that's right, the T-shirt and bomber jacket didn't make it to No 10 - or a leader who has wanted to stop and shake as many hands. Andy Burnham: The Laura Kuenssberg Interview Panorama What kind of prime minister will Andy Burnham be? In his first major broadcast interview since taking office, Laura Kuenssberg asks about his plans - and the challenges ahead. No 10 staff are already wondering if they'll ever be able to stick to a regular prime minister's schedule, normally designed with military precision. If Andy Burnham was able to take the time to stop and speak to everyone in the country, I suspect he probably would. It's a sign of his different style that our team was given permission to be behind the scenes at three key moments in the 59th prime minister's first week in charge - when he became Labour leader, when he walked into No 10, and on day one at his new Manchester outpost, No 10 North. Most important by far was our half-hour interview in that shiny new office, after weeks during which Burnham was chased by accusations he'd avoided tough questions. But the extra glimpses we were given, alongside Burnham's own voracious appetite for social media, display a prime minister that's not just at ease in front of the cameras, but a leader who wants to bring you along for the ride. They included revealing moments that are normally hidden - his first steps into the Cabinet Room to appoint his team, rating pub snacks with his Chancellor, John Healey, in an Instagram post , external , and sharing pictures with us of the family dog, Axel, whom he describes as having "angry little man energy". "Comms" - how politicians communicate and explain themselves and talk to the public - is not the be-all and end-all. Burnham's exploits online have already brought mockery and launched a thousand memes. But if a leader can't get your attention to make their arguments - as Keir Starmer found so challenging - ultimately, they are not going to get very far at all. And the biggest difference of the Labour reboot so far is how the government looks and sounds. They've put an obvious priority on punter-friendly announcements such as cutting VAT from energy bills and tax breaks for pubs - although it is important to note the details on how to pay for all of that are not yet clear. For Burnham though, telling his story is the easy part. Joking about the unique stink that accompanies Scampi Fries, or showing me his gold disc on loan from The Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr, won't help him deal with US President Donald Trump, find money for defence, or create a new service to care for the elderly and vulnerable in England. Nor will it be any use as he grapples with the country's huge debts, changing demographics or public concerns about immigration. Andy Burnham's dog, Axel Listening carefully during our interview, it seemed Burnham had distinct gears. He was fluent and passionate on his familiar ground: his desire to sort out social care, his track record in Manchester, his desire to run a government that feels relevant and effective where you live, local leaders eager to make many more decisions and able to spend taxpayers' money more freely without permission from Whitehall. Those are his core beliefs, arguments he's made hundreds, if not thousands of times. But when it comes to how he'll apply what he thinks in principle to what he does in practice, that was not always so clear. On social care for example, he's long believed there ought to be a National Care Service, like the NHS. But in a speech on Wednesday, that's not likely to be what he unveils. Instead, he told me he'd "brought it straight forward", understood to mean speeding up the government review by Baroness Louise Casey of what ought to be done, not saying, "here's the plan". When it came to questions that are on his desk for the first time, there was a contradiction. Burnham told us all many times that he will stick to the manifesto the country voted for in 2024 . But he's also vowed his arrival in office will usher in the biggest change in four decades. You don't have to be a student of political history to find a mismatch there - he's going to stick broadly to Sir Keir's plan, yet shift the government more fundamentally than leaving the EU, or the financial crash? Really? And beyond the rhetorical tension in several areas, Burnham gave clear indications that he will apply "new eyes". Will he stick to the home secretary's plans to make migrants wait 10 years or more before they can permanently stay in the UK? He's looking at that again he told me, and hinted that care workers could possibly be exempt. What about welfare? Remember Sir Keir ditched most significant reforms in the face of resistance on the back benches. While seeking not to "blame" anyone receiving benefits, Burnham said the country had to "get serious" about getting the welfare bill down, and suggested he might make it harder for some people to claim, by imposing extra conditions. He didn't want to give much away about where he was going to find extra billions for defence, or pay for public services. He repeated that he'd stick to the promises on income tax, VAT and National Insurance made in 2024. But the prime minister clearly pointed to a possible shake-up of the council tax system, where those with the most expensive properties might have to pay considerably more. Changes like that to council tax, or to welfare, would be huge political moves that would put him on a collision course with some of his party, and some political opponents too. Then, when it comes to matters of war and peace, which for Burnham are genuinely new, it felt we could see him thinking in real time how to answer the question, perhaps trying to balance giving a flavour of who he is, without creating a political accident. Does he trust Trump? Twice he wouldn't say. "It's a changing world," his second answer. This video can not be played Watch: 'You have to defend your own national interest before anything else' Would he take a call from Russian President, Vladimir Putin? A pause, then: "I'd have to know the circumstances". As mayor, Burnham evidently spent years thinking hard about how to use power, and how he wants to shift the balance in the UK away from Westminster. The impact of that stance could be profound, way beyond some admirably shiny No 10 signs emblazoned all over one floor of a government building in Manchester. Mayors are expected to get power to spend nationally collected income tax, and crucially to spend billions without strings. Burnham spent time too as mayor absorbing people's experiences, their hardships and frustrations. "My strength always is in remaining close to people, close to the public, that will not change because I am prime minister," Burnham told me. Although don't be in any doubt, he also spent time thinking and planning about how to make a return to the political heart of this country, the Westminster he believes is so flawed. Andy Burnham with members of his team at the new No 10 North But when it comes to the gravest matters that prime ministers have to deal with - security, power around the world, or the country's long-term economic stability, we're perhaps yet to see if Burnham's ambition for No 10 is accompanied by truly new big ideas that match the scale of his rhetoric. There are worries on the right of the Labour Party that Burnham has not absorbed the reality of the country's economic position - years of stuttering growth, and sky-high levels of debt that leave the UK incredibly vulnerable to the financial markets' judgements, whether he likes it or not. And concerns on the left, that he's tickled their bellies with promises of "authentic Labour", flirting with the ideas of increasing state control of vital industries, but which might not come through. And like most incoming prime ministers, he has precious little experience of handling international events. The moments in our interview where he was least sure-footed were answering questions about how he'd manage relationships with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Burnham says he is prepared to call out Trump 'if right for Britain' Andy Burnham rules out early election in exclusive BBC interview NHS 'will collapse' without social care reform, PM tells BBC One minister said he'd "vibe left, but govern from the centre". Perhaps, as he's tried to give firms and families a "breathing space" when it comes to the cost of living, he'll ask for "breathing space" from the public before his complete programme becomes clear. Burnham has long been unusual as a politician - a leader who has managed to be popular in a time when politicians often disappoint and are sometimes despised. He knows he's walking into a job that's been marked by failure for a decade. As he told me, "the onus is on me not to be another one who just doesn't change things". He's part of a political generation he proclaims to be "just not good enough". Remember, his own career has had plenty of failure too. It took Burnham three goes to become the leader of his party. As he arrived, straightening his tie, to be confirmed in the top job in central London 10 days ago, I asked him why he'd taken so long. He laughed and told me, "I like to make an entrance". Andy Burnham has now truly arrived. But he knows all too well, there won't be applause everywhere he goes. Watch Panorama Andy Burnham: The Laura Kuenssberg Interview on iPlayer now, and on BBC One at 20:00BST on Mon 27 Jul 2026. Ruthless plotter? Flip-flopper? Dad dancer? Insiders reveal the real Andy Burnham Burnham's 'Manchesterism' got him to No 10 - but will it work for the UK? Why Andy Burnham will find it so tricky to unite Britain Top picture credit: Reuters BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. Emma Barnett and John Simpson bring their pick of the most thought-provoking deep reads and analysis, every Saturday. Sign up for the newsletter here. Are you personally affected by the issues raised in this story?

This week the tech world was gripped by a story that has it all - and which started like a sci-fi thriller. Hugging Face - a kind of app store for artificial intelligence tools - announced on 16 July it had been hacked by a cyber criminal wielding enormously powerful AI. The bombshell announcement was full of scary, highly technical terms: "a swarm of sandboxes", "agentic attacker", and "self-migrating command and control". Hugging Face said , external the hack was different from anything it had handled before because it was done at superhuman speed by an AI with little or no human guidance. The AI performed 17,000 actions in less than two days, successfully breaching the large wealthy tech company to steal secrets. It left the tech world in shock. But who was responsible for this attack? Hugging Face researchers guessed the mysterious attackers had used one of the big AI models but they had no idea who or where the criminals were. The perplexed company contacted the police and investigations commenced. Commentators and analysts took to their podcasts and social media accounts to guess which cyber crime group or nation state hacker might be behind it. Then on Wednesday, nearly a week after Hugging Face raised the alarm, the true culprit was unmasked. It was ChatGPT. The Scooby-Doo-style reveal was made even more bizarre - and worrying - because OpenAI said its bot did the whole thing on its own, without permission. The firm said it all went down during a test of its tech's hacking skills. Two new versions of ChatGPT, designed to be master hackers, broke out of a supposedly secure test environment and gained access to the internet. They then attacked Hugging Face to get access to the information to help them ace their exam. OpenAI issued a press release , external explaining what had happened and said it was "partnering with Hugging Face" to address the security incident and share lessons learned. Since then, there has been fierce debate about the incident. Was it truly a stark warning about the future of AI? Or was it a publicity stunt by OpenAI to show off how powerful their models are? It's the kind of scare marketing AI companies have been accused of for years and, since the much discussed launch of Anthropic's Mythos model, c yber-security prowess has been a focal point . One of the top comments on OpenAI boss Sam Altman's X post about the incident summarises this scepticism: "If y'all can't understand that this was written to purely brag about the model then I don't know what to tell you." This video can not be played Watch: Why is the OpenAI cyber-attack so alarming? Cyber-security consultant Daniel Card said sarcastically on LinkedIn: "Isn't it lucky [that] out of the millions of sites that got pwn3d [hacked], OpenAI managed to pwn someone who also could benefit from the marketing exposure…" For some, the story is more conspiracy drama than sci-fi thriller. The message is: "Aren't my AI tools really powerful? Buy them so you can protect yourself from other people's AI attacks." We can't know the truth, but the opposing point of view posed by other commentators is just as dramatic. Is this a sign that OpenAI made a potentially dangerous error in judgement and planning? An OpenAI spokesperson said "we recognise there are a lot of questions and speculative details circulating" about the incident. They added that "we plan to publish a technical report of our learnings in the coming weeks". I've covered lots of AI stories, including the fears around Anthropic's Mythos model. My inbox is now chock full of cyber-security companies and experts criticising OpenAI for not building a stronger container to test its AI, known as a sandbox. After all, these AI agents had been trained specifically to hack into and out of places with no restrictions at all. "The OpenAI and Hugging Face incident is a real-world example of a broader issue we've been highlighting for months," said Dor Sarig from Pillar Security. "Sandboxes alone are not a sufficient security boundary for agentic AI." Firm hacked by rogue OpenAI models says it is 'a wake-up call' Cyber security Professor Alan Woodward from Surrey University told reporters OpenAI had "egg on it's face", and Katie Moussouris from Luta Security went further , external , suggesting the AI industry is failing to control its dangerous inventions. "We are working on cutting edge technology without the knowledge to contain it," she said. "Just because we have the smartest people developing AI does not mean we have the ability to do so safely." According to these views, if the hacking incident was a publicity stunt then it appears as though it backfired. Whatever led to the hack, it's clear this is a major moment for the AI industry and the cyber security world, which collided this year in ways people had been fearing for a long time. Addressing this fierce debate, AI and cyber security advisor Francesca Bosco said: "Two simplistic narratives are equally unhelpful: that this was a Hollywood-style escape, or that it was merely a publicity exercise. "A more serious interpretation is that a stress test exposed weaknesses in containment and evaluation architecture." This event is the latest in a string of worrying and weird examples of AI agents going rogue. In recent research , external , the UK's AI Security Institute (AISI) found frontier AI models are so fixated on completing tasks they "cheated" in tests to achieve their goals. The research from AISI came with this worrying warning: "A model that pursues a goal through unintended or unauthorised means may cause harm, particularly in high-stakes use cases." Inevitably, this OpenAI hack has further fuelled fears of what could happen if AI agents are let loose. Could they go rogue on a larger scale and cause some sort of disaster? This is particularly concerning with AI being used increasingly in warfare as seen in Iran and Ukraine. Ciaran Martin, former head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, offered a calmer view in a news interview. "It is a bit of a leap to go from this incident to saying that AI agents are going to take over drones and start killing people," he said. But for Martin, and many others, the story is undoubtedly another vivid example of something that 2026 is teaching us fast: AI agents are now very good hackers - and that is something we have to prepare for, urgently. OpenAI says its AI went rogue and launched 'unprecedented' cyber-attack ChatGPT medical advice brought man 'to brink of death', lawsuit alleges Lawmakers push for AI 'kill switch' after OpenAI models go rogue Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here .

Morgan Rogers scored 10 goals and registered seven assists in 37 Premier League matches last season for Aston Villa Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso says he has a "plan" to play club record £117m signing Morgan Rogers alongside Cole Palmer - and believes the England international will make an "instant impact". The midfielder became the most expensive British player of all-time when he moved from Aston Villa to Stamford Bridge last week. The 24-year-old is on holiday after playing for England at the World Cup, while Chelsea have begun their pre-season tour in Sydney. "In that position we needed an important player and I'm sure there were not many better options than Morgan Rogers," Alonso said. "You need players who can have that almost instant impact and I'm sure Morgan won't need much time to adapt to the club, the system and his team-mates," Alonso said. "That was the idea, to get a top player, and Morgan is one of them." Rogers has signed a six-year contract with Chelsea , with an option for a further year. Alonso insisted he will be ready, despite not yet taking part in pre-season training, and believes he will be compatible with fellow England international Palmer. The pair describe each other as being among their "best friends in football", with Rogers saying they would love to play together. "I have a plan. I have an idea. I can see them linking really well," Alonso said of the pair. "We need to have a good mix. If we get that balance right and those special players in the right positions, with good control, then we will be more competitive with and without the ball." Why Rogers and Palmer will thrive together in Alonso's Chelsea Chelsea in talks for Villa set-piece guru MacPhee Alonso conducted an open training session on Sunday evening The Blues are also expected to announce the £52m signing of France international defender Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace . The 26-year-old would be Chelsea 's oldest signing since 2022. "We want a squad with the right balance between quality and mentality," Alonso said. "Those things need to match in terms of maturity, but I think we are starting the new season with good energy. That's important." Chelsea have also brought in winger Geovany Quenda from Sporting, striker Emmanuel Emegha from Strasbourg and full-back Marco Palestra from Atalanta, and are expected to sign midfielder Valentin Barco, also from Strasbourg, in the coming weeks. That will leave Chelsea with nearly 40 players in their squad and needing to sell a substantial number of them. "We need to know that there will probably still be some movement," Alonso added. "We need to be flexible and quick to act. The main thing is that we have a clear idea, a clear plan that we have built. "It will probably change before the transfer window closes." Latest Chelsea news, analysis and fan views Ask about Chelsea - what do you want to know?

Shares in China's biggest memory chip maker have surged by more than 470% as they made their debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's tech-heavy Star Market. The surge has pushed ChangXin Memory Technologies' (CXMT) stock market valuation to around 3.3 trillion yuan ($487.3bn; £364.9bn), making it the most valuable listed company in mainland China. The spectacular debut comes despite a sharp selloff in technology stocks around the world this month. CXMT manufactures dynamic random-access memory (Dram) chips that power artificial intelligence (AI) data centres, mobile phones, PCs, tablets and other devices. The firm, which was founded in 2016 by Chairman Zhu Yiming, is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province in eastern China. The company has said it plans to use most of the proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) to boost production of memory chips and carry out more research and developments. The stellar performance of its IPO will offer some comfort to Chinese financial officials, who have been rolling out measures to help curb a stock market slump that wiped out more than $1.5tn in recent weeks. Analysts said the jump was also being driven by demand for the shares far outstripping supply. "The reason for the extraordinary bounce this morning is that only 7% of the shares are available for trading," Anna Macdonald, investment strategy director at Hargreaves Lansdown told the BBC's Today programme. It also highlights Chinese investors' strong appetite for a homegrown chipmaker, as the government in Beijing pushes ahead with plans to make its technology industry self-reliant. South Korean tech giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and US-based Micron dominate the Dram market, with the three companies accounting for around 90% of global production. Earlier this month, SK Hynix raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering , marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US. The company, a key supplier to AI chip giant Nvidia, said it had sold 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149 each. The shares surged as much as 17% on Friday in their first day of trading on the Nasdaq but have since given up some of that gain. SK Hynix saw its market value top $1tn in its home country in May, lifted by the boom in demand for AI chips.