Train driver pay rise agreed before Burnham took office

Andy Burnham has agreed to a pay rise for train drivers, according to the Daily Express, which warns he can't now backtrack on the commitment. The deal was reached before he became Prime Minister in late July.

Darren Jones, who remains in his previous Treasury role, has warned against relying on public spending as a path to wealth, GB News reports. Jones told the new Prime Minister the country is "poorer than we think" - a caution that sits awkwardly beside commitments already made.

The tension is structural, not personal. Every incoming government arrives with promises made in opposition and a Treasury that begins saying no on day one. The train drivers' settlement is unusual only in its timing: agreed before the premiership began, it can't be blamed on the civil service or discovered in the books. The question is what else was promised in the transition that now meets the same fiscal warning.

Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch has reshuffled her shadow cabinet, sacking two members, the Express reports. Opposition reshuffles in a government's first weeks are routine - the new leader shapes her team while the other side is still moving in. The names matter less than the fact of it: she is defining her frontbench while Burnham defines his agenda.

Watch whether Jones's warning translates into policy - whether the Treasury caution shapes what Burnham announces to Parliament, or whether the commitments made before he took office simply proceed regardless.