Preferable to Starmer he may be, but there is scant sign of a sharp political break in Burnham’s policies so far — while left challenges aren’t making much of a running either, finds ANDREW MURRAY. How can socialism be put back on the map?
JUST after midsummer, sitting on a gravel “beach” by a shallow murmuring stream, dappled by sunlight through the alder canopy, we divided up our snacks and got down to serious eating.
From the corner of my vision a flash of red and blue whizzed by just in front of our noses. I froze. Then a few seconds later a second jewel flashed across, followed by a familiar whistle … one of the two kingfishers calling to its companion.
That kingfisher pair told us something. Their presence confirmed that the stream still held a healthy population of fishlings — bullhead (“miller’s thumb” to us oldies), minnow, troutlings — and that the birds likely had a bank nest somewhere close by, though we failed to find it.
JAN WOOLF relishes an extensive history of our long relationship to trees in Britain that underlines the current emergency
In his fortnightly Borderlands column, MARK SEDDON visits overgrown forts along Offa’s Dyke and reflects on wars past and present



