On the day the new prime minister steps into No 10, the heap on his doormat will be ceiling-high with missives imploring, advising, warning and counselling. No doubt there will be many pearls of wisdom and some bad ideas too. Each one will involve getting or spending money, decisions for his first totemic 100 days.

It so happens that his first day, 20 July, is the first week of school summer holidays in England and Wales. As he walks into Downing Street, millions of children will leave the school gates “walking into nothing”, as one child told the Children’s Society. Lonely, isolated, caring for siblings, many hungry, some at risk – for those children, six weeks will loom ahead with Covid-like emptiness, home alone as parents work, no splashing in the sunlit waves of the holiday ads.

A Children’s Society report on the hidden costs of the school holidays for families is just one of the pleas awaiting him as an early reminder of the deepening crisis of child poverty he takes on his shoulders. Every day will confront him with financial extremes as the need for money presses in, but so too will the need to revive public trust that money doesn’t pollute political decisions.

At the grotesque end, let’s start with yet more Nigel Farage revelations – a reminder for Burnham that he has an early opportunity to end the squalor of the large sums pouring into politics. Any filth swashing around Westminster becomes his responsibility, as he has power to pressure-wash vast donations out of the system. Most MPs........

© The Guardian