Nursery Safety Reforms and Extreme Weather

There are growing signs that Sakhir Starmer is on the brink of announcing his resignation as Prime Minister, possibly as soon as this morning. Senior Cabinet colleagues have told Sakhir who spent the weekend mulling his future to set a timetable for his departure. Just seventy two hours ago, Downing Street insisted he would fight any leadership challenge, but that's now considered unlikely. The new NP for Makerfield, Andy Burnham's making his way to Westminster where he'll be sworn in later today. Here's our political correspondent Joe Pike. Weekend Labour politicians kept largely silent, leaving the Prime Minister to mull his political mortality at checkers. Today, that is like ly to end, with senior government figures expecting Sakira to announce both his resignation and a plan to hand over to his successor. A coronation looks increasingly likely with Andy Burnham the probable beneficiary. He is due to be sworn in the Commons Chamber this afternoon. If the UK does get a new prime minister, its fifth in four years, a new cabinet will be appointed and a new policy platform set out. If Sakhir Stamer does announce he's stepping down, it would be the UK's sixth prime ministerial resignation since David Cameron announced his departure the morning after the Brexit referendum, almost exactly a decade ago. With his thoughts, he's our political editor Chris Mason. Four years ago, Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. Three months later, I was in the street again as Liz Truss acknowledged she too had lost the support of her MPs. There was, of course, Rishi Sunak in the midst of all this too. A restless electorate means jittery political parties privately some senior figures fret that what they see as an epidemic of short termism makes it harder for the country to wrestle with generational challenges from def to social care . But the brutal truth is winning is a process, not just an event , and Sakir Stama has been losing support and fast ever since winning the general election. New checks on safe sleep practices are to be introduced in nurseries in England from this autumn alongside an extra three thousand unannounced offstead inspections each year. The change from the Department for Education follows a number of safeguarding incidents, including two separate convictions of nursery workers for the manslaughter of children in their care. Massy Savander's son Noah was fourteen months old when he died at Fairytales Nursery in Dudley after being tightly wrapped in a sleeping bag with a blanket over his head. Those children weren't seen as humans, they weren't seen as children. I do feel that they were being treated as inanimate objects. Ultimately, Noah has suffered the ultimate sentence and we alongside that contin,ue that sentence. The nursery worker involved was jailed in April . The UK's record for the hottest June temperature looks likely to be broken this week with forecasts as high as thirty eight Celsius for parts of Southern England. A Mesh office amber warning for extreme heat is in place until midnight on Thursday, covering much of the south and east, the Midlands and parts of Wales. Tropical nights are likely for some areas too when temperatures don't drop below twenty celsius . The heat wave is already taking its toll on many European countries with Spain cancelling a public screening of its World Cup match yesterday in Madrid. In Germany, the Berlin open tennis tournament was suspended due to severe thunderstorms. More than half of France has been placed under a red alert, leading some towns to cancel their annual Fet de la Musique Festivities. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris. For the first official day of summer, forecasters in France are predicting temperatures touching forty degrees Celsius, the west and center of the country being the worst hit areas. In regions, under the maximum red alert, public drinking of alcohol has been banned. Spain and Portugal are also seeing very high temperatures . In Madrid, authorities cancelled public transmission of the World Cup match yesterday against Saudi Arabia. The heat wave is expected to peak Wednesday when temperatures in Paris may exceed forty degrees, but there won't be a return to more normal conditions until at least the weekend. tennis Serena Williams is to make a surprise return to the women's singles at Wimbledon after accepting a wild card for this year's tournament. The forty four year old who won the W'imsbledon singles title seven times came out of retirement earlier this month. She's already been given a world card to play in the Doubles alongside her sister Venus Williams.