Shenzhen-based giant that started as a battery manufacturer, is leading the charge with two luxury brands. Denza, once a joint venture with Mercedes- Benz but wholly owned by BYD since 2024, will showcase its D9 and Z9 GT models to British buyers at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, an annual event for petrolheads that starts on July 9th. Yangwang, an even pricier marque that goes up against the likes of Ferrari, will follow, probably next year. BYD is not alone. Geely, which started selling its £32,000 ($42,000) EX5 SUV only last year, plans to launch its premium Zeekr brand in Britain— joining Polestar and Xpeng in a Chinese crowd aiming to compete with the likes of BMW and Audi. Promotional videos for the sporty Denza Z9 GT show Daniel Craig, an actor best known for having played James Bond, flinging the £100,000, 1,140hp electric vehicle around a damp forest trail. The choice lets Denza piggy-back on Bond’s association with Aston Martin, a legendary but struggling British brand that will not offer any EVs before 2030. “Daniel Craig is really smart; 007 is really smart,” says Bono Ge, head of BYD’s British division. “He’s always driving some fancy cars with high tech inside so I think it really matches what we’re doing.” Yet it won’t be easy to crack the luxury-car market, where even established names have struggled recently. BMW slashed its full-year operating-margin forecast from 4-6% to 1-3% last month and Porsche’s operating profit plunged by 93% last year. Aston Martin’s shares have lost almost all their value since their market debut in 2018. “Denza has a massive mountain to climb,” says Murray Scullion, who recently reviewed the Z9 GT for Autocar magazine. “It is making a Porsche rival for a Porsche price. At this end of the market buyers tend to be much more brand loyal.” Denza is pinning its hopes on technology, particularly its super-fast EV charging, says Mr Ge. A combination of BYD’s latest batteries and charging stations that can deliver up to 1,500kW—six times more power than Tesla’s fastest chargers in Britain and 30 times more than most street-corner facilities—is claimed to restore a battery to 70% charge in five minutes. It plans to install 300 in Britain by the end of the year. Still, how many Britons will park their Porsche in order to drive a Denza remains to be seen. ■
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Is Andy Burnham more than just a smart-casual Sir Keir Starmer? Britain’s next prime minister outlines plans that look a lot like those of the outgoing one July 2nd 2026 “I AM GOING to give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs,” Andy Burnham promised as he set out for the first time what he wants to do if—or rather, when—he becomes prime minister. In the opening speech of his campaign for the Labour Party leadership on June 29th, the former mayor of Greater Manchester acknowledged that more of the same would not be enough for him to succeed where Sir Keir Starmer had failed. The contest to find a new Labour leader, and therefore prime minister, does not officially begin until July 9th. In reality it is as good as over. No other candidate has come forward. Barring some freak occurrence, Mr Burnham
will be named party leader on July 17th and enter 10 Downing Street on July 20th. Mr Burnham’s easy self-confidence, in a tight black T-shirt, presents a striking contrast to the Starmer premiership. “A Uniqlo man who can pull off a pair of Birkies”, wrote the Times. But his policy agenda, as far as one exists, looks more similar to the status quo. In his speech, delivered on his home turf in Manchester, he called for every region to have “clear and credible industrial ambitions”—little different from Sir Keir’s industrial strategy that promised to “enable investment and growth in city regions and clusters across the UK”. Public procurement should be overhauled to benefit “our own British-based suppliers”; this is what Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, once called “securonomics”. On education, Mr Burnham wants a shift away from a system “configured entirely around the university route”—exactly in line with Sir Keir’s plans, which aimed to offer students more access to technical courses. The heir- presumptive wants to reform business taxes to benefit the high street, and to build record amounts of subsidised housing; so did Sir Keir and Ms Reeves (although Mr Burnham focuses specifically on council houses, which are fully owned by the state, rather than the broader “social and affordable” category).
Yet there are reasons to think that Mr Burnham could surpass his predecessor’s achievements even without a big change in policy direction. Voters view him as more likeable, decisive and strong than they did Sir Keir when he took office, according to YouGov polling (see chart). Labour MPs who saw how he beat both Reform UK and the Green Party, populist insurgents from right and left, in the recent Makerfield by-election that brought him back to the House of Commons, will cut him more slack than their outgoing leader. His promise to use the parliamentary whipping system less aggressively could lift the mood in his party, as well as being the start of wider constitutional change he claims will help politics work better. And the speech contained hints of greater radicalism. Mr Burnham promised that Whitehall’s obsession with hoarding power would be “over for good”. The first step will be moving some of the functions of Downing Street to Manchester in a new “Number 10 North” unit—a largely symbolic move that could nonetheless prove to the civil service that he is serious about doing things differently. He has also expressed support for greater fiscal devolution: Britain raises just 5% of its tax revenue locally, less than any rich country of similar size. Mr Burnham pledged to allow local administrations to “take greater public control of essential services like water, housing, energy and transport”. It is unclear whether this means old-school nationalisation, which would be fiddly and expensive, or a more flexible hybrid model. Mr Burnham left many more questions unanswered in his first big policy speech. For a man who claims that communication is a great strength, it was odd to start with a relatively short speech and no chance for questions from journalists. He did not mention “AI”, “productivity”, “the deficit”, “migration”, “China” or “Trump”. Nor did he speak like a man who realises how quickly his popularity could ebb: he talked of “a ten-year mission to raise people’s living standards”, evoking ominous memories of Sir Keir, Boris Johnson and Theresa May, all of whom said they wanted a decade in charge and none of whom lasted much past three years. Three years, give or take, is the time between now and the last possible date of the next general election. Mr Burnham must act fast to prove he is more than just a smart- casual Starmer.■
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Britain hopes drones will help it escape its defence- budget bind The government’s controversial defence investment plan finally breaks cover July 2nd 2026 IF Sir Keir Starmer is hoping that the long-awaited and bitterly contested defence investment plan (DIP) that finally broke cover on June 30th will be seen as a lasting legacy, he is likely to be disappointed. The document, which commits £15bn ($20bn) of new funding to the armed forces over the next four years and sets out spending plans for the next decade, contains much that is sensible and even bold. But at a time when European allies are rapidly rearming and in the face of increased global threats, the goal of allocating 2.7% of GDP to defence by 2029, an increase of just 0.1 percentage points over next year’s level, looks paltry.
At NATO’s summit in Ankara next week, Sir Keir’s last hurrah as prime minister, otherwise sympathetic fellow leaders will ask some hard questions about Britain’s path to meeting its pledge of core defence spending reaching 3.5% of GDP by 2035. The new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis—who stepped in after John Healey resigned two weeks ago over Sir Keir’s inability “to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country”—says that in the next spending review defence “will be the number-one priority”. But there is nothing to bind the hands of Sir Keir’s successor, Andy Burnham. Indeed, Mr Burnham will inherit a problem. To make space for the DIP, there are to be cuts in energy and transport schemes—not great for a government that stresses the importance for growth of infrastructure. And an unidentified £4.7bn shortfall in the DIP’s funding will still need to be found at the next budget. One “untouchable” (some say “unaccountable”) programme, the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE), will take about half of the equipment budget over the next decade. The modernisation of the nuclear deterrent, which involves building four ballistic-missile submarines and designing a new nuclear warhead, has become a money pit. Funding for the DNE, including the AUKUS submarine pact with America and Australia, over the next four years will be nearly £64bn, an increase of £20bn over the previous four-year period. Another big item is the £8bn over four years that will go into the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) to build a sixth-generation fighter jet with Italy and Japan, which it is hoped will enter service by 2035. Much to the delight of Britain’s biggest defence firm, BAE Systems, which is leading the project, for diplomatic and industrial reasons that programme is also now deemed, in effect, ring-fenced. To compensate for the hollowing out of Britain’s conventional armed forces over the past 20 years and the tightness of the budget now, the government is betting heavily on investment in what has become known as “affordable mass”. Over £5bn is going into a “drone transformation” of the armed forces. The army will get inexpensive attack drones and uncrewed ground vehicles of the kind that have changed the battlefield in Ukraine as well as