Best Of

Good morning

I see no path for Burnham to PM, but what this is doing is creating division and angst within labour and no 10

Their conference is going to be all about Burnham and Farage, and the media will be entirely focused on their perceived 'gotchas'

In fairness to Burnham he has been an excellent mayor for Manchester, and he is a Northern MP challenging the London centric labour

I'm reminded of another guy who became an MP, crashed and burned, and then used a big city Mayoralty to redeem himself. (As currently configured, it is politics on easy mode- all the fame but few of the painful tradeoffs.)

However, the ambition still burned with the fire of a thousand suns. And the press loved him for providing a story on a quiet day. And the party in the country loved him for telling them what they wanted to hear.

So he half-wrecked his party in order to get the leadership. And then (because he wasn't really up to the job, which is why he crashed and burned in the foothills) he fully wrecked his party while he had the leadership.

History, tragedy, farce and all that.

Isn't it interesting how things that used to be regarded as cheerful are now regarded as a nuisance? For example in the 80s and 90s young people used to walk around with ghetto blasters on public transport and most people had a fairly happy attitude towards the music they were playing, but now it's a bad thing if people play music publicly.

I am not sure they did.

Also, the problem is orders of magnitude worse now that everybody has devices. You have somebody playing social media videos, then somebody takes a call but can't hear the person they are talking to because of the video playing, so they talk loudly, then somebody else turns up their music because they can't hear it now because of the video and the person on the phone, and rise and repeat, until everybody is shouting at their phones or playing media on full blast.

I see Nige is continuing down the MAGA rabbit hole.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/24/farage-refuses-criticise-trump-paracetamol-health-experts-dismiss-autism-claims

"When Farage was asked if he would side with medical experts who say it is dangerous to make the link, he added: “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. When it comes to science, I don’t side with anybody, right? You know? I don’t side with anybody, because science is never settled. We should remember that.”

I think (hope) this will become a real weakness. Drinking the RFK/Trump kool aid on health and medicine is not going to persuade many of the great British public of your prime ministerial credentials - at least, I hope not.

Hiding behind the obvious truth, at least to a philosopher of science who has read Hume and Popper, that science is never settled isn't good enough. It invites curiousity about whether the adult Farage has ever taken an antibiotic, had a flu or covid injection, acted on medical advice, been cautious about ingesting cyanide, relied on the physics by which areoplanes can fly (he has reasons for doubting that one), deiced a windscreen etc.

"The science on gravity isn't settled" Farage exclaimed as he walked out of a 10th storey window.

I think we have stumbled on why so many Russians fall out of windows. It's purely an attempt to further the cause of science.