Prime Minister begins UK tour on cost of living as petitions and policy rows trail behind

Andy Burnham has begun a summer tour of the country to hear directly from voters on the cost of living, the Mirror and the Independent report. The Prime Minister is asking people how government should tackle being "ripped off" - a focus on subscription traps and what the Mirror calls "rip-off discounts".

Meanwhile, GB News reports Burnham is poised to make a decision on the case of PC Harper's killers, with a petition passing eight hundred thousand signatures. The Sun also carries older remarks from Burnham - made months before he became Prime Minister - suggesting private landlords could be forced to sell rental homes. The Express warns the proposal risks cutting the birth rate by squeezing housing availability.

The tour format is itself unusual: a sitting Prime Minister leaving Westminster to solicit opinion on an agenda not yet set. It's the opposite of the policy announcement circuit - the roadshow precedes the policy, not the other way around. Whether it shapes actual measures or functions as political theatre will depend on what follows the listening phase.

What to watch: whether any policy emerges from the tour, and whether it addresses the structural drivers of high costs - planning rules, energy policy, the tax treatment of housing - or confines itself to consumer protection at the margins. The gap between a listening exercise and legislative action is where most such tours dissolve.