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But in a heatwave their muscles generate more heat, while their thick coats and round bodies make it harder to cool down.

Dr Richard Comont, the Trust's science manager, says that once air temperatures reach around 28C to 32C, UK bumblebees can start to struggle to fly without overheating. If they cannot fly, they cannot forage.

"They actually cook themselves from the inside out," says Comont. "Once their internal body temperature is much above 40C, they literally start dying, they start keeling over."

The BeeWalk data shows in 2022, when the UK had three official summer heatwaves and temperatures reached 40.3C, population numbers dropped significantly.

Red-tailed, buff-tailed and common carder bumblebees - three of the country's most common species - peaked well below normal levels - down 20%, 25% and 35% respectively - before dropping further into autumn as colonies struggled.

The effects appeared to last beyond that summer. BeeWalk data showed overall queen numbers were below average in March, April and May 2023.

Scientists stress that warm, sunny weather is not automatically bad for bumblebees. Previous warm years have been good for some species, particularly those with more southerly ranges.

The problem is extreme heat and drought. As well as their overheating bodies, the other issue for bumblebees is dwindling supplies of food.

Colonies depend on workers bringing back a steady supply of nectar and pollen through the summer. If flowering plants begin to dry up, they produce less.

Dr Paul Williams, a bumblebee expert at the Natural History Museum, says foraging is an energy calculation for bumblebees. The nectar return has to make the expenditure of energy worthwhile. As he puts it, they need to "make a profit".

They cannot afford to waste energy searching dried-up flowers for nectar and pollen that is no longer there.

If they cannot find enough food, larvae develop more slowly, colonies grow less strongly and fewer new queens may be produced for the following year.

Rising global temperatures, as a result of climate change, has put the UK on course for more frequent and intense heatwaves.

Conservationists say the best way to help is by creating more flower-rich habitats, so bumblebees can find food even as the climate becomes more extreme.

Dr Sarah Beynon is an insect expert whose west Wales farm is managed for wildlife as well as food. She has planted meadows, willows, hedgerows, tussocky grasses and late-flowering crops to give insects food through the summer.

"When we came, this farm was a wildlife desert," she says. "In 10 years, it's become a nature reserve."

Her message is that people do not need acres of land to help. A pot of native wildflowers on a doorstep or windowsill can act as a small refuelling stop for insects moving through a human-dominated landscape.

"Your flowerpot is a service station," she says. "It's somewhere to rest, refuel and carry on."

Dr Richard Comont adds that putting in a pond - however small - and shade can also help.

Flowers growing near water tend to produce nectar with more moisture in it, he says. Bumblebees cannot collect water in the way honeybees do, they get most of the liquid they need from nectar, so wetter nectar can help make colonies more resilient in hot weather.

Whilst planting dense shrubs gives bumblebees places to escape the heat of the sun, and can allow them to move between flowers through cooler patches of air. %!s()

What made it such an effective thriller was that it all seemed so frighteningly real. Although the two sides in that civil war were fictitious, it hit a raw nerve precisely because of the very obvious divides that scar modern day America.

But interestingly it was actually written and directed by a British film-maker, Alex Garland, and he expressed worries about his home country, as well as the US. In both countries, he told the Guardian, "there's a lot to be very concerned about".

He's not alone. If you are an avid user of social media, you could almost believe that we are a nation disunited enough to have a full-on civil war of our own. And even away from the exaggerated adversarialism online, there are plenty of people worried that Britain is gripped by uncontrollable rage.

It's a sense of discord that Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, seems to recognise. Since announcing his run for the Makerfield seat in May, he's repeatedly urged Britons to forget about party labels or factional identities and instead unite around pride in their local area. "Place first, not party first", is how he puts it.

And as he entered Downing Street on Monday, he called for a "new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity".

But it's worth asking: just how divided really is Britain?

Common Ground

Evan Davis travels across the UK exploring the forces that are driving the UK apart, and he hears ideas to improve our sense of "social cohesion".

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Some talk as though the population is ready to wield the pitchforks; that we are close to social breakdown; that a small spark could lead to a serious fire.

Last year, a commission co-chaired by the former Home Secretary, Sir Sajid Javid, warned in a report: "The bonds that hold society together - civic participation, and a shared sense of belonging - are under growing pressure."

Well, I have just had the privilege of spending a month journeying - literally and figuratively - through some of the divisions that define modern Britain, for a Radio 4 series.

Is there any common ground left in the country that Burnham has now inherited - or are we polarised to the point of no-repair?

A defining split

For a long time, Britain had a clear, defining split: social class. What kind of job you had, how you spoke, what time you had your evening meal, what you watched on TV, how you voted… it was all pre-determined by your working or middle class background.

Today, that has got a lot more complicated with a decline in the number of jobs that would have been regarded as "working class", and a big rise in the number of young people going to university from those backgrounds. That's not to say it isn't still there.

But probably the most obvious faultline in Britain and other western countries now is in values, with a marked difference between two sides: progressives on one side, and social conservatives on the other. If we have a civil war any time soon, it'll be the Allied Readers of the Guardian versus the United League of GB News Viewers. That schism is more clearly driven by age and education than it is by class.

This clash defines politics at the moment, and manifests in rows about "woke" values, patriotism, and immigration. And what makes it so intense is a feeling, held by some on both sides, that the other side is some kind of existential threat to their vision of what society should be.

Because this is such a clear schism, we commissioned polling from the More in Common research institute (covering Great Britain, not Northern Ireland).

We asked respondents if they prefer living in communities "where more people come from different cultural backgrounds", or "where most people come from the same cultural background". We found a population split down the middle: 53% prefer a diverse community, 47% said they preferred a more homogenous one.

It poses a challenge for Burnham: it's much harder to settle a national argument where there is a 50-50 divide, than where one side dominates completely.

On the specific question of immigration, however, the country looks more united. Our poll found that about three-quarters of Britons thought immigration was too high. Burnham himself has said that net migration was "way too high" under the Conservative government, and said he'll try to "find the right balance" on the issue.

Faultlines

But that's not the only faultline cutting across British society. From my conversations around the country, I heard a list of other, quite distinct concerns. These are often bound up under one general heading of "polarisation", but it's been illuminating to unpack them.

One specific worry - most keenly felt on the right - is about social integration. It is whether in some cities, there are communities of different culture, ethnicity and even language, residing right next to each other but living totally separate lives. We saw that voiced in Leicester, the city with the highest share of people who speak a main language that's not English.

Jason, a 54-year-old window installer, has watched the city undergo this change, and has made Hindu and Sikh friends. But Jason, who is white British, also has his complaints, and says that Muslim families in the area tend to turn down his services. "They do stick to their own."

He says there's one part of the city he now stays away from, after he was racially abused last year by a group of men in a car "calling me a white so-and-so". And he finds the language barrier particularly difficult. "Sometimes it's very hard to take an inquiry on the phone. You're doing a quote on the windows and you just really can't communicate."

And then there's another worry - perhaps felt more keenly on the left - about what some see as rising levels of racism and violence. From Southport to Southampton, racial tensions have erupted on the streets in the last few years.

Hannah Henderson, who runs a dog-friendly coffee shop in Southampton, says she was recently driving with her daughter when they passed a hotel that houses asylum seekers. "There was a protest happening… people with the St George's flags around their shoulders… police lining up. She felt really unsafe. She's twelve. She didn't really understand, why would people be so cross?".

And then there's the divide between different places. Some residents of deprived, post-industrial towns - areas that have suffered from the disappearance of manufacturing and mining - feel a quiet frustration towards larger, economically flourishing cities. Those smaller towns tend not to have a university, and they tend to have a run down high street, giving a visual sense of decline. Places like Wigan - in Greater Manchester, Burnham's stronghold - often languish next to the bigger cities in whose shadow they sit.

This is a point made by Fiona Hill, the daughter of a coal miner from Bishop Auckland who later moved to Washington DC to become a senior White House adviser. Her book, There's Nothing For You Here, is named after the advice her father gave when she left school in 1984.

"The reason it's called 'left behind' is because you look at health outcomes, education, transport, access to amenities… and all of the [towns] that we're talking about are left behind," says Hill, who is now chancellor of Durham University. "Certainly they're not on the same level as… the flourishing city centres in Manchester, Liverpool, and absolutely not at the same level as London."

Sharing too little

Another, related concern is that we simply share too little these days: we do things at home alone; we don't go to church together each Sunday; we barely go out to the pub like we used to.

And on the national level - in England at least - there's only a vague sense of identity. Yes, most of us might enjoy watching the national football teams. But is that all our sense of nationhood consists of now? Even the flag - and its place on lampposts and signs - has become divisive.

Playwright James Graham thinks that a nation is largely defined via "the story it tells itself" - and parts of England, he says, feel excluded from the national story.

"Some people get bigger roles than others in that story, historically," he says. "If you see yourself on screen or stage, or in film or books or newspapers, if you feel like you're being seen and you're being heard and you feel part of a story, that does temper some of the natural bitterness and resentment that you feel when your economic situation isn't quite so good."

It all suggests Britain is a nation not quite at ease with itself and with a lot to fix.

Common ground

That being said, we found a lot of common ground talking to people around Britain; reasonable folks dispirited by the problems they observe, but ready to navigate their way through them constructively. For every riot, there are volunteers who'll come out the next day to clean up the mess.

Often there's a sports team or community centre that becomes a focal point for neighbourly spirit. At Grimsby Town Football Club, we heard from Christine Green, who started volunteering for the club during a difficult period in her life. "I was going through a divorce and… needed something to occupy my time and my mind so I'm not focusing on negative stuff", she remembers.

She lives in the deprived East Marsh area of Grimsby, a neighbourhood she says is often derided as a place of crime and unemployment. It is an image she doesn't recognise. "I know the person next door and I know the person across the road. My mum lives the next block up and my daughter can take the dogs for a walk. That's nice to me - not living in a secluded house where you've got no idea who anybody is around you."

Lord Stockwood, the Grimsby-born entrepreneur who bought the football club in 2021, says: "In an increasingly complex and crazy world, this is a place of permanence and love and memory for me and for many others."

Indeed, in our poll, it was encouraging that most respondents didn't seem to want to burn their locality down. We asked respondents if the city, town, or village they lived in was a good place to live and work. A full 70% thought their location was "very good" or "somewhat good" as a place to live. (It was less than that, only about half, who thought it was a good place to work.)

But is 70% good enough? You can take a glass two-thirds full or a third empty view of that figure.

Place is a unifying force

I do wonder if one way of finding common ground will be a renewed focus on the idea of "place". Increasingly, there's a push - from politicians and academics - to help people forge (or re-forge) connections to their local areas.

Certainly, Burnham seems to agree. When we embarked upon this journey, we didn't know he would be entering No 10. What fortuitous timing. He must have spent more time outside London in the years running up to his premiership than any other modern prime minister - and it's fascinating to see where that's landed him.

Last year, he told the Institute for Government think tank: "Place is a unifying force. However people vote, they are united by a desire to see the place where they live move forward."

From the capital, the thinking goes, it's easy to think that if we can make Britain work, then each community will flourish. It might be that we really need to do it the other way round - if we can make each community flourish, then the country will work.

That's not straightforward by the way. As Burnham knows, it has been easier to revitalise Manchester than the many towns spread around it. But creating social cohesion where it is lacking, is surely a defining mission of Burnham's premiership.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. Emma Barnett and John Simpson bring their pick of the most thought-provoking deep reads and analysis, every Saturday. Sign up for the newsletter here

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The NGO said in a statement on Monday that it was “outraged by the treatment of healthcare workers, most of whom are being detained in dire conditions, without justification or cause”.

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MSF highlighted the case of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who is in solitary confinement and has reportedly been tortured since being detained by Israel more than a year and a half ago.

His treatment “follows an appalling pattern of the Israeli authorities detaining and targeting medical staff across Palestine”, the organisation said.

The Physicians for Human Rights Israel group reports that more than 50 healthcare workers are currently being held in inhumane conditions by Israel, including 15 doctors. It has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court for their release.

According to Healthcare Workers Watch figures from April, 446 Palestinian healthcare workers have been unlawfully detained by Israeli forces since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Six have reportedly been killed in detention, their bodies still held by Israel.

MSF also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Mohammed Obeid, who has been imprisoned for more than 600 days, after being arrested while working at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

MSF noted that “for too long, too many world leaders have failed to condemn Israel’s conduct in Palestine. Silence has become complicity”.

It added that all arbitrarily detained medical personnel must be granted access to adequate medical care and dignified conditions pending their release from detention.

Earlier this month, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry ⁠on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention both called for Israel to release Abu Safia, and all medical personnel arbitrarily detained.

His lawyer, Nasser Odeh, warned that the doctor’s health was in danger, and that he showed signs of regular torture. Israel is holding the paediatrician without trial, having classed him as an “unlawful combatant”.

Before he was abducted by Israeli forces, Abu Safia had been a prominent voice highlighting the effects of Israel’s war on Gaza’s healthcare system. %!s()

There are a host of platforms and marketplaces now offering livestreams connecting sellers and customers, from Instagram Live, YouTube Shopping, to eBay and Amazon Live. They're all different.

Live shopping, it seems, is becoming part of everyday consumer behaviour for many.

According to new research from retail agency Savvy Marketing, 30% of shoppers surveyed said they'd bought something from a live shopping event.

"The big retailers have got to grab hold of this," says Catherine Shuttleworth, CEO of Savvy. "It's grown from nothing to a huge thing really quickly. If you haven't got a strategy for live selling, you're going to miss out."

TikTok Shop says its UK sales grew by more than 30% year-on-year in June, with live shopping the fastest-growing format.

It says it now has more than 6,000 livestreams taking place every day.

At an event in the centuries old Covent Garden market, it hosted 20 small businesses with stalls who were also selling live to customers all over the UK.

With nothing more than a smartphone, a lighting kit and a fridge full of fresh meat, halal butcher Manny Malik from Wolverhampton had around two hundred people tuning into his session.

"Last week we did a TikTok live for three hours and we sold £8,000 worth of meat," he says.

It would normally take him three to four days to sell this amount in his family shop, Malik Butchers.

They're now opening a second store in Stoke. TikTok, he says, is helping to drive his expansion.

But there are fees.

TikTok Shop UK keeps up to 9p from every £1 sold on the platform, as its standard commission.

As a comparison, eBay's marketplace business sellers typically pay between 6.9p and 14.9p depending on the category. Businesses selling on the dedicated live selling format, eBay Live, pay a combined fee of up to 8.42p including payment processing.

"It's a lot," says Manny.

"For us in the meat game, there aren't huge margins. However, it's opened up a new platform. We didn't have these sales prior to TikTok. We're not losing money, we've got enough profitability in there," he adds.

Buket Sevik, 34, founded her jewellery brand Adorina in February after quitting her 9-5 job as a business manager. Her new business went from 50 orders a month to 500 orders a week since she started live selling on TikTok UK shop in May.

She's gone from working from her dining table to live streaming from a small unit, where orders are now being packed.

"It's crazy," she laughs.

Demand is so high, she's trying to hire someone to help.

But for Buket, the best thing about livestreaming is the flexibility.

"I can go live whenever I want... which means it works absolutely perfectly for me as a mum. I can put my daughter to sleep and I can just hit go live and do some sales."

Savvy's latest survey of shoppers also found that 66% of Gen Y and Gen Z shoppers said seeing products sell out or go viral made them more likely to buy.

That's something that worries the free debt advice service, Money Wellness, which warns live shopping events are "a recipe for overspending", says external relations manager Rebecca Lamb.

"Every time you snap up a bargain before it sells out, your brain gets a dopamine hit - the same rush you get from gambling," she says.

"And because a lot offer one tap payment, there's no card, no basket and no total. Often you've spent money before your brain has caught up," she says. %!s()

He outlined his intention to unveil a 10-year "new plan for Britain" later this year, explaining this would lay out a path to where he believes "we all want Britain to be".

Burnham promised to make announcements this week to "give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living" and explain how he would pay for them.

Burnham also started making cabinet appointments after removing loyalists of former PM Sir Keir Starmer. Out went Rachel Reeves as chancellor, David Lammy as deputy prime minister and justice secretary, and Steve Reed as communities secretary.

Healey, who quit Sir Keir's government due to a row over defence spending, was in as chancellor.

With Burnham saying he wants to honour the UK's commitments on defence spending, Healey will face the challenge of finding the extra money he believed the last government failed to deliver to keep the UK safe.

Speaking to broadcasters, Healey said the pair will "work in lockstep to meet the fiscal rules with a buffer against uncertainty" and on how they will "make life more affordable for working people right across the UK".

Ed Miliband moves from energy secretary to foreign secretary, replacing Yvette Cooper who is now the health secretary.

Miliband told the BBC it was the "honour of my lifetime" to become foreign secretary, a role his brother David held between 2007 and 2010.

Shabana Mahmood remains as home secretary and Louise Haigh takes on the role of Burnham's fixer across government, serving as first secretary of state, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister for the Cabinet Office.

Angela Rayner returned to a cabinet job as housing secretary, a role she previously held in Sir Keir's government. She stood down in September 2025 after admitting she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 flat in Hove.

Wes Streeting, the former health secretary who at one stage was seen as a possible leadership challenger, is the new defence secretary.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed Burnham to his new role but said he has not "set out a clear plan for government".

She said "Britain needs a leader who can take difficult decisions, not a people pleaser" and criticised him for "promising to undo Margaret Thatcher's policies".

Burnham's first policy pledge as PM was to end rough sleeping in the country, something he promised for Greater Manchester but failed to achieve during his time as mayor for the area.

Burnham also spoke of his ambition to help more young people into work, build more council homes and honour the UK's commitments on defence spending.

He said: "We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people's success rather than paying for failure."

Burnham added: "Let's build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity. Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again, the moment we bring back hope."

Burnham later told reporters that he would be "looking at" the tax-free personal allowance ahead of his first budget in the autumn, after the issue was repeatedly raised during his successful by-election campaign in Makerfield.

But he stressed that changing it would be "difficult" in the current economic circumstances.

Asked if he could pay for a change by reintroducing the 50p top rate of tax, he said it was "premature to say that".

The standard personal allowance is currently £12,570, which is the amount of income someone does not have to pay tax on.

Burnham also said he "does not want to leave office" without reforming the social care system.

He said that Westminster's record on the issue over the last 30 years was "not defensible".

Little more than a month after he secured his return to Parliament as MP for Makerfield, Burnham found himself having an audience with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace for almost 35 minutes on Monday.

He was asked to form a new administration, accepted and made the short journey to Downing Street to announce the news, to cheers and applause from a large crowd of his supporters.

Unlike his predecessors, Burnham opted not to use a lectern and did not have any notes to hand as he stood in front of the famous black No 10 door to address the nation.

Burnham said: "I'm acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street, the seventh prime minister since 2016, making this a moment for reflection and new resolution.

"It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge. Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again, and that is our challenge – to make politics work, to make it work better."

Burnham described the moment as a "circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years - a new political model and a new economic model".

After his speech had finished, the new PM kissed his wife, Marie-France van Heel. He also shook hands with supporters before entering No 10.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Edward Davey said it was "disappointing not to hear anything from the new PM on social care, on Europe, or on protecting our precious natural environment".

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for a general election, saying Burnham "cannot be allowed to make the 'biggest changes in politics for 40 years' without a mandate".

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said now is the time for "bold politics".

He said: "The prime minister's speech today will leave many sceptical that Andy Burnham really plans to challenge the wealth and power of the establishment and it all starts to look and sound like more of the same."

Burnham spoke to US President Donald Trump shortly after taking office.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the PM told Trump about his "vision" for the UK and that ensuring the security of the UK and its allies "was at the top of his agenda".

The pair also spoke about the Middle East and the World Cup, while Burnham also told Trump he hopes to be able to show him "what Manchester had to offer during a visit in the future".

Burnham also spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky, with the Ukrainian president writing on X: "I truly appreciate that the support for Ukraine and our people will remain steadfast."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she had a "very good" first discussion with Burnham", adding: "We are both committed to bringing the EU and the UK closer and closer."

A day of change at the top began with Sir Keir completing his departure from Downing Street, two years after he led Labour to a landslide general election victory in July 2024.

Sir Keir, flanked by his staff and supporters, said Burnham has his "full support".

He added: "I go with good grace. I go with a smile, and I go proud of everything that we have achieved." %!s()