Best Of

I think the United (Opposed To Everything) Kingdom is apt .

Nothing gets done because politicians are too frightened to tell some home truths . Put taxes up to pay for defence opposed, try and build anything opposed , try and deal with social care opposed etc .

The public just aren’t interested in anyone telling them the reality so just want to continue down the path into la la land .

I think this is wrong.

Politicians have bought into the focus group bullshit to the point they don’t want to upset anyone.

This leads to upsetting everyone.

See the driving test farce.

Yes - but you have to decide your priorities. People will normally accept governments pursuing one or two unpopular policies if they seem part of a generally acceptable whole - they tend to accept that unwelcome decisions may be needed if the general picture is right. For example, I don't favour monarchy, but I wouldn't advise any party to make abolition of the monarchy a key objective - people would rightly feel that the government wasn't attending primarily to improving their lives.

For me, the key Labour policy should be improving the situation of the poorer half of society, ideally through measures such as improved education which pay an economic benefit in the long run as well. If that means that comfortably-off people (like me) are paying more tax, that's OK.

Can we start, whoever replaces Starmer, with the removal of Phillipson? She's utterly mad, and comes across as a rather nasty piece of work to boot.

I can't imagine, to take only the obvious examples, why she thinks extending Gove's policies on academies, defunding proper teacher training programmes to extend the lunacy that is Teach First and crippling an already buckling SEND system is going to do anything to improve children's education.

But really she should just be sacked for that truly ghastly video with Gemma Collins.

Phillipson is a gender-critical feminist who was appointed as Minister for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities to do gender-critical things, which she is doing thoroughly. The education of children and the pursuit of equality is not relevant although if it happens then that is a happy accident.

Entirely off thread, but I'm having a lovely day. My daughter and I are cycling coast to coast in aid of her trip nezt year to do voluntary work in Cambodia. 50 miles today, 50 milea tomorrow. The weather is being implausibly kind and the North of England ia beautiful. There is much of Northern Cumbria which is new to me - Silloth is surprisingly impressive with its views over the Solway - and, in the sunshine, the lanes and small villages between the Lake District and the Solway are gorgeous, with wide views to Scotland, the Pennines and the Cumbrian Fells. I particularly enjoyed the band of sandstone villages south of Carlisle.
We are now in Haltwhistle, opposite the Centre of Britain hotel and just down the street from the Centre of Britain launderette. Haltwhistle is full of exuberant teenagers, presumably revelling in GCSEs and A Levels being over and the joy of being young and free and at large in the summer.

All downhill from here. Except for the absolute bastard of a climb up to the Stanegate tomorrow morning to avoid the A69.

Here are our bikes at Silloth, dipping their wheels in the Irish Sea (sort of - it seemed above and beyond the call of duty to pilot them all the way out to the waterline given the tide, and they needed to be rescued from sinking into the wet sand shortly after this.
(It would have been a poor start to the adventure to lose our bikes to quicksand.)

Excellent article by Charles Moore in the Telegraph on why Labour should not give Burnham a coronation

"A Burnham coup would be disastrous for Labour – and the country" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/19/burnham-coup-would-be-disastrous-for-labour-and-country/

He is right. It's the summer months so they have the space to do a proper debate. If he was smart Starmer would do what Michael Howard did: arrange a proper debate between the candidate. That resulted in David Cameron and six years of Conservative or adjacent government.

But Starmer is not smart and will not do that.

Labour is NOT in opposition - if Labour want to change lead it's up to their MPs.

Last thing we need is a set of people who want even more for themselves getting to pick the candidate who offers them most sweeties.