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That Michael Crick interview is a must watch.

I sometimes speculate that the Coalition agreement played a significant part in the success of the Coalition government. It required the politicians on both sides to think seriously about what their plans for government were over the next 5 years, the areas where they could work together and what aspirations and ambitions in their Manifestos had to be put aside. There was then a clear plan of what was to be done.

In contrast, most parties are elected on a Manifesto which is little more than a wish list of all the things they would like to do with unlimited time and resources. The tough choices are almost completely avoided and all too often policy A works contrary to policy B and vice versa. The 2024 Labour government was a classic of this kind which is why it never had any sense of direction. This did not mean it did nothing, some worthwhile things have been done, but there is no sense of purpose or priority.

With Burnham we are trying something even more radical. A new government without even a manifesto. He is going to have to disappoint a lot of people quickly. It will be a challenge to his considerable narrative skills to make this sound coherent. We can only hope he can pull it off.

Accenture’s crash shows the consultancy racket is finished
Smart chatbots have exposed just how shallow much of the industry has become
...
...
There are already signs of a wider downturn in the consulting industry. KPMG is laying off about 4pc of its American workforce, and 600 jobs in Britain. McKinsey has considered a 10pc reduction in its staff numbers, according to a Bloomberg report.

Here in the UK, PwC cut 2,000 people from its payroll last year and has reduced its graduate intake this year. We can assume there is a lot more “natural wastage” behind the scenes, as people who leave aren’t replaced. One by one, the major consulting firms are all starting to cut the number of people they employ.

For the British economy, that is likely to be especially bad news. Depending on the metric used, the consulting industry generates between £14bn and £20bn in annual revenues in this country and also accounts for close to £6bn a year in exports.

Globally, it is estimated to be worth more than $500bn (£378bn) a year. It provides training for tens of thousands of new graduates every year, giving them the first rung on the ladder in a business career. If it starts to decline significantly, that will impact the entire British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/accentures-crash-shows-the-consultancy-racket-is-finished/ (£££)

Classic broken window fallacy. I can’t see how this isn’t absolutely brilliant news for the economy in the long run, while appreciating that there will be some short term costs.

Consider tax advisory - that only exists because of the mad complexity of the tax system and the need for experts to guide a firm through it. If you can circumvent those costs via either AI or, better, a simpler system, that’s a good thing.

We can only hope that many of the graduates who might have been employed by consultancies get employed by the businesses who previously used the consultancy instead. If so, they may well contribute more to UK plc. I wouldn't overstate it though. My son graduated last year and most of his friends are working for either consultancy firms or quant firms.

I find this kind of question fascinating, and I think economic history proves that it’s impossible to predict. What industries will be borne from massive but intermittent electricity generation? If 50% of the UK’s service economy gets supplanted by AI, what’s everyone going to do?

At the top end, you’ll still have some consultants in the same way 1% of the population are still farmers. But otherwise…

I share your interest and lack of certainty about what the future holds. I think that AI and automation are more likely to destroy more jobs than they create and full employment may very soon become unattainable, if it is not already.

The key breakthroughs I see are in driving and care. If white van/delivery man is replaced then full employment is gone forever. If we get used to the idea that machines can provide care and company for our elderly and disabled so much work is going to disappear. Higher up the pay scale more jobs will survive but there will still be many fewer than there are today. How such a system produces an adequate surplus to provide even our current standard of living is still unclear to me.

I don’t think lack of employment is an issue as long as returns to labour overall remain a significant percentage of output (or capital is shared more equally).

Remember that something like 50% of the gains from productivity growth in the 20th century was absorbed by better standards of living. 5 day week, 9 to 5, holidays etc etc. One thing I’m fairly certain of is a 3/4 day week standard by the time I retire.

We are very poor at anticipating new jobs that transformative technologies unlock, because they don't exist yet.

Accenture’s crash shows the consultancy racket is finished
Smart chatbots have exposed just how shallow much of the industry has become
...
...
There are already signs of a wider downturn in the consulting industry. KPMG is laying off about 4pc of its American workforce, and 600 jobs in Britain. McKinsey has considered a 10pc reduction in its staff numbers, according to a Bloomberg report.

Here in the UK, PwC cut 2,000 people from its payroll last year and has reduced its graduate intake this year. We can assume there is a lot more “natural wastage” behind the scenes, as people who leave aren’t replaced. One by one, the major consulting firms are all starting to cut the number of people they employ.

For the British economy, that is likely to be especially bad news. Depending on the metric used, the consulting industry generates between £14bn and £20bn in annual revenues in this country and also accounts for close to £6bn a year in exports.

Globally, it is estimated to be worth more than $500bn (£378bn) a year. It provides training for tens of thousands of new graduates every year, giving them the first rung on the ladder in a business career. If it starts to decline significantly, that will impact the entire British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/accentures-crash-shows-the-consultancy-racket-is-finished/ (£££)

Call me cynical, but if AI can now spout bollocks as convincingly as your average management consultant, that's unlikely to be bad news for the economy. If the whole lot goes, that's £14-20bn which could be used for something more productive than the employing the equivalent of thousands of pointy haired bosses from Dilbert.

It's probably bad news for the balance of payments, if £6bn worth of foreign money was arriving in return for bollocks sprouted abroad.

It's probably particularly good news for the government, as they currently hand over vast sums of money to these outfits to be told what was usually obvious to the man in the street after 5 minutes thought. Maybe cutting spending will prove easier than they think.

Accenture’s crash shows the consultancy racket is finished
Smart chatbots have exposed just how shallow much of the industry has become
...
...
There are already signs of a wider downturn in the consulting industry. KPMG is laying off about 4pc of its American workforce, and 600 jobs in Britain. McKinsey has considered a 10pc reduction in its staff numbers, according to a Bloomberg report.

Here in the UK, PwC cut 2,000 people from its payroll last year and has reduced its graduate intake this year. We can assume there is a lot more “natural wastage” behind the scenes, as people who leave aren’t replaced. One by one, the major consulting firms are all starting to cut the number of people they employ.

For the British economy, that is likely to be especially bad news. Depending on the metric used, the consulting industry generates between £14bn and £20bn in annual revenues in this country and also accounts for close to £6bn a year in exports.

Globally, it is estimated to be worth more than $500bn (£378bn) a year. It provides training for tens of thousands of new graduates every year, giving them the first rung on the ladder in a business career. If it starts to decline significantly, that will impact the entire British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/accentures-crash-shows-the-consultancy-racket-is-finished/ (£££)

Classic broken window fallacy. I can’t see how this isn’t absolutely brilliant news for the economy in the long run, while appreciating that there will be some short term costs.

Consider tax advisory - that only exists because of the mad complexity of the tax system and the need for experts to guide a firm through it. If you can circumvent those costs via either AI or, better, a simpler system, that’s a good thing.

We can only hope that many of the graduates who might have been employed by consultancies get employed by the businesses who previously used the consultancy instead. If so, they may well contribute more to UK plc. I wouldn't overstate it though. My son graduated last year and most of his friends are working for either consultancy firms or quant firms.

If they have technical skills relevant to the business, yes.

The reason why consultancy is a thing is because it's economically inefficient for any one business to retain a full time in-house team of problem solvers. They alone will only need that experience now and again. However, most businesses need this expertise in aggregate, because supply chains, regulations, technology, finance markets and consumer demand is changing all the time, so consultancies are born that can create a business model from it. And they can then sell that experience and practice to others.

The real issue is we train too many "generalists" and not enough scientists, engineers or technicians.

Which current cabinet members should be excluded from Burnham's?

Hermer is top of my list
Reeves, R
Reeves, E (the entire department needs replacing)
Jones
Reed
Alexander, H
Lammy
McFadden
Phillipson
Murray
Kendall
Nandy
Miliband

The lack of real talent round the table is scary. Very poor communicators along with their other flaws

It really does need to be a major cull.

Chris Curtis should get some kind of job on the basis he seems to have some actual ideas and he knows a lot about how the public think having worked for YouGov.

The best communicators are:

Burnham

Streeting

(Surprisingly) Alexander was pretty decent at transport

Ed M (he’s divisive but not a bad communicator)

I’m sure there are others but those are the good ones

Miliband is too much of a zealot to stay where he is

It's against the law to enter the country without permission, but the authorities don't seem to apply that law very much.

Important not to mislead. It is legal to enter the country with the intention of applying for asylum.

Does it become retrospectively illegal if one fails to claim? If so, after how long? If not, it's angels on a pin stuff.

Yes, it would be illegal if they do not make a claim, but 98% of small boat arrivals do, and the majority get accepted as their claims are valid.

Whether you think it right or wrong is beside the point. It is legal to do so.

No need to make up numbers when the statistics are freely available.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2026/how-many-people-are-granted-asylum-in-the-uk

I am not sure what your point is.

The figures on applications include both Small Boat Arrivals and those applying from a different position, such as a student visa. The main nationalities arriving by small boat are Afghans, Iranians, Sudanese and Eritreans, these are the applicants with the highest success rates. 93% of Sudanese for example.

Even so and considering all asylum applications, 42% are successful at first application and of those initially rejected 76% appeal, of which 33% of appeals are successful, so the majority of asylum applications are successful.

More than 95% of small boat arrivals apply for asylum.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403/

There were two points. The first about applying. Economic migrants come here to game the system as do visa overstayers. This needs tackled.

The second point is applying numbers for Sudanese, Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese as if that applies to all nationalities. It's glossing over when the issues are granular. Hence people can drill down the numbers to see the range of issues e.g. Vietnamese or even as mentioned this week someone from the US.

Discussions about immigration fall into the same hole that discussions about Trans. There is simultaneously a need to discuss the issues rationally and at the same time a number of uninformed and irrational comments. Then there is the significance issue. Should there be time, and resources given over to the Trans issue relative to the numbers of issues on immigration? Amplification by social media and astroturfed groups could be mitigated by actually looking at the numbers - but few do.

An immigration system where you get rid of your talented people, make it hard for talented people from other countries to get in but accept all the dross and illegal entries is a recipe for disaster and surprise surprise the UK is in the crap and public services are absolutely overrun.
Then these clowns wonder why local people who cannot get houses , doctors , etc get upset that you can waltz in on a boat and get a couple of years in a hotel, doctor, dentist etc etc and then a nice council house and benefits.
French are not so stupid.

Accenture’s crash shows the consultancy racket is finished
Smart chatbots have exposed just how shallow much of the industry has become
...
...
There are already signs of a wider downturn in the consulting industry. KPMG is laying off about 4pc of its American workforce, and 600 jobs in Britain. McKinsey has considered a 10pc reduction in its staff numbers, according to a Bloomberg report.

Here in the UK, PwC cut 2,000 people from its payroll last year and has reduced its graduate intake this year. We can assume there is a lot more “natural wastage” behind the scenes, as people who leave aren’t replaced. One by one, the major consulting firms are all starting to cut the number of people they employ.

For the British economy, that is likely to be especially bad news. Depending on the metric used, the consulting industry generates between £14bn and £20bn in annual revenues in this country and also accounts for close to £6bn a year in exports.

Globally, it is estimated to be worth more than $500bn (£378bn) a year. It provides training for tens of thousands of new graduates every year, giving them the first rung on the ladder in a business career. If it starts to decline significantly, that will impact the entire British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/accentures-crash-shows-the-consultancy-racket-is-finished/ (£££)

I never really understood how new graduates are supposed to be able to act as management consultants, when they have no experience at all of management. I can understand the point of getting advice from veteran managers from outside the organisation.

They are trained in how to define and structure ambiguous problems: gather data, analyse it and present the findings clearly.

Although, I'd agree. I'd recommend doing a few years in industry first. Because otherwise you don't really know what you're looking at.

Accenture’s crash shows the consultancy racket is finished
Smart chatbots have exposed just how shallow much of the industry has become
...
...
There are already signs of a wider downturn in the consulting industry. KPMG is laying off about 4pc of its American workforce, and 600 jobs in Britain. McKinsey has considered a 10pc reduction in its staff numbers, according to a Bloomberg report.

Here in the UK, PwC cut 2,000 people from its payroll last year and has reduced its graduate intake this year. We can assume there is a lot more “natural wastage” behind the scenes, as people who leave aren’t replaced. One by one, the major consulting firms are all starting to cut the number of people they employ.

For the British economy, that is likely to be especially bad news. Depending on the metric used, the consulting industry generates between £14bn and £20bn in annual revenues in this country and also accounts for close to £6bn a year in exports.

Globally, it is estimated to be worth more than $500bn (£378bn) a year. It provides training for tens of thousands of new graduates every year, giving them the first rung on the ladder in a business career. If it starts to decline significantly, that will impact the entire British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/accentures-crash-shows-the-consultancy-racket-is-finished/ (£££)

Classic broken window fallacy. I can’t see how this isn’t absolutely brilliant news for the economy in the long run, while appreciating that there will be some short term costs.

Consider tax advisory - that only exists because of the mad complexity of the tax system and the need for experts to guide a firm through it. If you can circumvent those costs via either AI or, better, a simpler system, that’s a good thing.

I can. I used to work in consulting. The vast majority of people I worked with later use that experience in business - either setting up on their own, or going in house. My worry is that without the rigorous training that Consulting provides, it is another nail in the coffin of this generation's job prospects and future employability.