Staycationers, be warned: Andy Burnham is coming to a beach near you, as part of a planned “listening tour” of the UK in August. Our new Prime Minister has reportedly lined up several seaside stops: Margate in Kent, Southend in Essex, Aberdeen in Scotland, and Port Talbot in Wales.
It would be churlish to suggest he is targeting areas where Reform UK polls well, but Essex and Kent do happen to be go-to destinations for migrants crossing the Channel on boats from France. That said, Burnham will surely steer clear of Clacton, where Nigel Farage is contesting Count Binface in a by-election on 13 August. Two’s company on the beach, but three’s a crowd when it comes to media coverage.
Holibobs and hair transplants
Where Burnham will take his family when he finally concedes he needs a holiday is an open question. Blackpool is only a 40-minute bus ride from his Makerfield constituency – but that feels a tad too post-industrial.
If he’s feeling bold he could try Normandy, where I have just spent a long weekend. The cycling east of Caen is exhilarating (smooth roads sans potholes); the market produce (cheese, hams, saucissons) delicious. And the history comes hard and fast – not just the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach but also William the Conqueror’s superbly renovated castle in Falaise, a staging post for the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
Somehow, I cannot see Burnham going anywhere near Tony Blair’s favourite destinations: Tuscany, Barbados or Sardinia, where he was hosted by the then Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Blair and his wife, Cherie, were famously caught on camera alongside Berlusconi, then recovering from a hair transplant. Who can forget the white bandana protecting Il Cavaliere’s newly constructed thatch?
Slow news days?
There’s a myth that news never happens in dog-day August. Hence the term “silly season”, when England’s newspapers publish fantastic stories, usually featuring animals. Classics include sightings of great white sharks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall; crazed chipmunks attacking middle-aged ladies; and the front-page Times report on the death of Benson, Britain’s best-loved carp (1984-2009).
My own experience at the Financial Times was very different. In August 1990, when I was stationed in Washington, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait six days before my son Dash was born. Three years later, having moved to Brussels, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism collapsed on the eve of a badly needed family summer vacation.
More recently, the Russian invasion of Georgia (2008) and the fall of Kabul (2021) both took place in August. This year looks ominous. The US-Iran war continues to flare up, despite multiple deadlines, peace deals and foggy truces. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin seems bent on escalating his bid to bring a defiant Ukraine to its knees. Memo to foreign correspondents: don’t switch off your mobile phones.
From business to leisure
Every summer for 14 years, in my capacity as FT editor, I was charged with reading eight or so books shortlisted for our Business Book of the Year Award. In these post-FT days, I can be a great deal more adventurous in my summer reading. My tips include Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling, which captures how the capital has changed over the past 30 years. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times is a stunning indictment of the second Trump presidency. This month I will also meet my annual resolution to read one novel in German – most likely Melody by Martin Suter, the Swiss-German author who writes psychological thrillers with wicked humour and elegant understatement.
A transatlantic getaway
The best joke about holiday destinations comes courtesy of Peter Mandelson. Some 19 years ago, well before anyone had heard of Jeffrey Epstein, I was invited to give a short address to the Economic Club of New York. There was much interest in Gordon Brown, who had just succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister. Brown was a man of many talents, I noted. He was also reliably pro-American.
Ahead of the speech, I shared my thoughts with Mandelson, who promptly corrected me.
“Gordon is not pro-American,” he said. “He’s pro-Cape Cod.”
Lionel Barber was editor of the Financial Times from 2005 to 2020
[Further reading: Donald Trump is searching for a legacy]
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This article appears in the 05 Aug 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Europe's shame
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