Best Of

Well at least he's unlikely to be Labour's Liz Truss.

Burnham brings in top economists before possible leadership run
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/18/andy-burnham-top-economists-possible-leadership-run
..Burnham is understood to be getting advice from Andy Haldane, a former Bank of England chief economist, as well as Richard Hughes, a former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility and Jim O’Neill, a crossbench peer and former Treasury minister who worked on George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse”..

Pretty sure they will tell them there is no effing money. Then what? He has won as a change candidate and will be unable to afford the changes he (and the country) wants. Back in the same mess by next summer.

Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.

People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…

Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.

I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.

So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.

I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.

Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.

Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.

The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...

Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.

Yes, going on the economy is a much better way forward (particularly as Truss fades from memory like some fever dream). Badenoch cannot resist the Culture War clickbait though.

That was to compete with Reform (in part, I'm sure she is genuine about it). If Reform fade a bit it's less necessary.

I maintain culture war fights from any side are popular with their voters, you need a bit of it to spice things up, but it cannot be the whole meal.

That's like Reform being a vindaloo, the Tories a dupiaza, and Restore a plate of dry chilli powder.

(There's a thread/buzzfeed article for you - whoch party is which curry?)

Heh, think that's spot on for Reform and Restore. Tories are surely one of those old British lunchbox 'curries' from the 70s - not quite sure what to do, so some chicken with a bit of curry powder and some sultanas. Labour Tikka Masala - default choice, not really liked but what you choose when you dislike all the others more. Greens saag aloo. Lib Dems a makhani or something, completely bland, inoffensive and pointless, but rich and makes you feel a bit sick if you have too much.

As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.

Two big takeaways:

Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling.
In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?

Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.

A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.

As Thatcha once said, Rejoice

Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?

(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and;
(2) Reform are not "over"

The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.

I think it will be talked about for decades, even if Labour lose the next election; it's an inflection point in the country's political history.
And Rochdale is right about the change in mood and approach - I suspect a lot of Londoners don't fully grasp that.

It won't be talked about for decades.

It's significant now and will be ancient history once Andy Burnham loses office.

Tories 2%

Second order effects.

Will their be any change in media alignment?

GB News seem to be utterly committed to being Reform TV with no exit in view since they employ some of them including Farage, but what about press outlets such as the Telegraph or the Express or the Spectator?

From observations of BTL comments, and accepting that it is perhaps largely noise, there is plenty of wild assertion (eg hang SKS from a lamp post) at GB News and the Telegraph, which are not free / open access (Telegraph is subscription, GB News has "featured comments" for those who pay).

To me there is some similarity to the noisy libertarian political bloggers from the late noughties, who used to do things like post pictures of hanging nooses from time to time.

Long running outfits like DTel, Speccie, Express will do whatever needs to be done to sustain their viability. The Speccie has a long history of sustaining a coherent Burkean polity, lost in recent years in favour of a posh post modernity with sharp edges all over the place, though at least it is sometimes funny. It would be greatly improved if it had a sustainable and coherent editorial position. I don't think it ever fully recovered from Conrad Black.

They will all retreat in moments from and playing with the Far Right as soon as it is convenient to do so.

What the serious centrist media lack at the moment is sufficient editorial positioning that it is possible for them to promote solutions and visions within the realm of the possible. As the FT and Economist did brilliantly some years ago. The centre left New Statesman is woefully bad in this regard. I have no idea where it stands on anything.

Don't know enough about GB News to comment. Does anyone watch/listen?