Best Of

Kemi will be pleased she mainly has positive scores as does Burnham. Farage will be concerned 'good' had been replaced by 'racist' as the main attribute given to him, although he is seen as an attribute to his party as is Burnham and Badenoch and as Starmer was not for Labour,

Burnham should give Labour a bounce given Labour, LD and Green and even Tory voters see him as an asset to his party even if Reform voters do not. Kemi will also be encouraged by the fact every party's voters except the Greens see her as an asset. She will also be pleased she polls slightly better with Reform voters at 40% than Farage does with Tory voters at 39%

I don't like Burnham, although I can understand the relief at his ejection of the incapable Starmer. He appears confident and suggests he is capable.

I still don't see Badenoch's attraction to voters. Other than getting bigged up after a disastrous set of locals, what has she done to deserve the adulation?

I think it's largely relief that she hasn't turned out to be quite the disaster many feared.

Kemi will be pleased she mainly has positive scores as does Burnham. Farage will be concerned 'good' had been replaced by 'racist' as the main attribute given to him, although he is seen as an attribute to his party as is Burnham and Badenoch and as Starmer was not for Labour,

Burnham should give Labour a bounce given Labour, LD and Green and even Tory voters see him as an asset to his party even if Reform voters do not. Kemi will also be encouraged by the fact every party's voters except the Greens see her as an asset. She will also be pleased she polls slightly better with Reform voters at 40% than Farage does with Tory voters at 39%

I don't like Burnham, although I can understand the relief at his ejection of the incapable Starmer. He appears confident and suggests he is capable.

I still don't see Badenoch's attraction to voters. Other than getting bigged up after a disastrous set of locals, what has she done to deserve the adulation?

In London the Tories made net gains, in Scotland the Tories have just gained Aberdeen South, in areas Reform are weaker Kemi is helping the party make progress

Reform's lead narrows slightly this week - they now lead the Tories by 6.

➡️ REF UK 28% (-1)
🌳CON 22% (+1)
🌹 LAB 21% (-1)
🔶 LIB DEM 12% (-1)
🌍 GREEN 10% (+1)
❓ OTH 3% (nc)
🟡 SNP 3% (+1)

https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2069701247242768767

'Leader approvals we have someone in the positive! Burnham jumps up to +9, Badenoch is at -1, Davey is at -7, Farage is at -16, Polanski at -21 and Starmer is at -45.'

https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2069701255002239185?s=20

Kemi's going to get walloped by Andy at the next general election!

That's over 3 years away.

Wait until he actually becomes PM.

https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/2069649219112071576

Jones also confirms Burnham will borrow more. However mostly for infrastructure which is an excellent idea.

Council house building.

Put like that, it's pretty sensible, isn't it? Borrowing to create things that are both useful and should generate income.

And, splendid as the profit motive is, in housebuilding it seems to lead to a throttling of supply.

Borrowing for investment in new labour speak was simply spending money on day to day stuff so if they do this, I cannot see an issue. As long as it is a proper market based return and not heavily subsidised.

There is plenty of spare capacity in the house building industry. Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off

If,you can’t make a profit or adequate return doing something, why do it. I listened to a Bloomberg money podcast on housing. In some parts of London if a builder had the land for free they wouldn’t make any money. We need to encourage private businesses.

Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off because the demand isn't there for houses at the current cost of building.

Unless the Government kicks off a social housing scheme which would open up a whole set of Nimby issues I can't see much that can be done to resolve the issue.

Build pairs of council houses in every village in Britain (up to perhaps 2% or 5% of the existing housing stock) and let them to respectable people with 50 years of local roots.

The nimbyism against council housing is based upon:

1) What the council housing of the 1970s had become - edge of conurbation sink estates or slums in the sky or slums in the sky in edge of conurbation sink estates.

2) The suspicion that new council housing will be given to immigrants or undesirables.

Each village in Northumberland has one street of mostly ex Council properties.

Which is clearly how to do it. I'm not too bothered if they get RTB'd over a couple of decades. The important things are:

1 Building in bulk will be cheaper than the one-at-a time model (because builders won't hold what they can't sell) we have at the moment.

2 There's a glaring market failure if builders aren't building.

3 We currently spend a fortune each month subsidising private rental through housing benefit.

'The prime minister's chief secretary Darren Jones might have ruled himself out of the Labour leadership contest - but former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns could still challenge Andy Burnham.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, Carns insisted he is "pretty serious" in considering a leadership bid, but wants to "see behind Andy Burnham what the policies are" before making a final call.

As a reminder, leadership nominations open on 9 July and run until 16 July. Potential candidates have until then to amass the support of at least 81 Labour MPs to enter the race.

Asked whether he will back Burnham if he agrees with his policies, Carns tells BBC Newsnight: "I think that's a collective view across the Labour Party as a whole."

He explains the party wants to "get behind" Andy but says "we need to see that material before I can make a decision to back anyone".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyewjpwgk9t

"Please give me a cabinet post."

If the party "wants to get behind Burnham", why does Carns want to waste a couple of months for him with a leadership election ?

In order to consider a leadership bid, you still need >80 other Labour MPs to think it is a wizard wheeze, don't you?

An interesting question.
I suspect he doesn't, but OTOH there might just be enough pissed off Starmerites to grasp the opportunity of throwing a spanner into the works ?

I think it would be fairly irresponsible at this point, FWIW.

Burnham is facing a pretty steep learning curve as it is.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/23/burnham-and-starmer-hold-frosty-meeting-to-thrash-out-transition-of-power
...Allies of Starmer said that although he was serious about an orderly handover, he had no qualms in denying Burnham – who had initially hoped to take over in September – a long coronation in order to prepare for government.

“There was a strong push from the Burnham camp to be given longer. But why should they tell Keir they want him out, then expect him to manage the ship through a potentially difficult summer? Keir will of course cooperate on transition, but it will be through gritted teeth,” one said.

Some in Burnham’s team were exasperated about the shorter timetable. “The last lot had years to prepare and still fucked it up. We’ll just have to do it in three weeks,” one senior source said. “The length of the transition will focus minds.”.

Yes must be a complete surprise to team Andy that he has become PM.

https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/2069649219112071576

Jones also confirms Burnham will borrow more. However mostly for infrastructure which is an excellent idea.

Council house building.

Put like that, it's pretty sensible, isn't it? Borrowing to create things that are both useful and should generate income.

And, splendid as the profit motive is, in housebuilding it seems to lead to a throttling of supply.

Borrowing for investment in new labour speak was simply spending money on day to day stuff so if they do this, I cannot see an issue. As long as it is a proper market based return and not heavily subsidised.

There is plenty of spare capacity in the house building industry. Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off

If,you can’t make a profit or adequate return doing something, why do it. I listened to a Bloomberg money podcast on housing. In some parts of London if a builder had the land for free they wouldn’t make any money. We need to encourage private businesses.

Vistry and Crest Nicholson are laying people off because the demand isn't there for houses at the current cost of building.

Unless the Government kicks off a social housing scheme which would open up a whole set of Nimby issues I can't see much that can be done to resolve the issue.

Build pairs of council houses in every village in Britain (up to perhaps 2% or 5% of the existing housing stock) and let them to respectable people with 50 years of local roots.

The nimbyism against council housing is based upon:

1) What the council housing of the 1970s had become - edge of conurbation sink estates or slums in the sky or slums in the sky in edge of conurbation sink estates.

2) The suspicion that new council housing will be given to immigrants or undesirables.

3) That the 1940s edge of village council houses are ugly.

Can we do better this time?

Fair point.

Although private housing of that era also tended to be estates of identical houses.

At least the ability to vary houses in size, shape and style has been achieved since then.

My stance has been for years (probably 20 years now) that villages should be able to grow at 1% per annum as of right - as a background to other policies. It probably could do with local links, needed local workers, being prioritised.

But I think the principle fits in with both history and current needs.

I adopted that view when a particular village was unable to do a small development in a piece of local land for sweeping national policy "NOPE" reasons.

Two things the next Chancellor should immediately promise are:

1) No more increases in business taxation
2) No more increases in pension taxation

Reeves twice allowing months of speculation about increases in business and pension taxation had detrimental effects on business investment and pension planning.

I'm a pensioner, and most of my friends are now pensioners. It's eccentric to suggest that we should be exempt from tax increases (especially as pensioners tend to vote Tory or Reform anyway). A means-tested increase, including abolition of the right to a state pension if one's already got ample private pension, would meet widespread approval. I appreciate that this would go against promises made in ca. 1945 but really one needs to revisit these things sometimes - someone getting £80K in private pension really doesn't need the national pension.

Tax (for example merging IT and NI, and applying it to pensioners) would probably a better way of addressing that, though, wouldn't it ?
Means testing always implies ongoing administrative costs.

Merging employee NI into Income Tax should be a no-brainer for the Treasury, yet for some reason there’s significant institutional inertia towards the idea.

You could give a higher personal allowance to pensioners if you wanted to smooth the transition.

'The prime minister's chief secretary Darren Jones might have ruled himself out of the Labour leadership contest - but former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns could still challenge Andy Burnham.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, Carns insisted he is "pretty serious" in considering a leadership bid, but wants to "see behind Andy Burnham what the policies are" before making a final call.

As a reminder, leadership nominations open on 9 July and run until 16 July. Potential candidates have until then to amass the support of at least 81 Labour MPs to enter the race.

Asked whether he will back Burnham if he agrees with his policies, Carns tells BBC Newsnight: "I think that's a collective view across the Labour Party as a whole."

He explains the party wants to "get behind" Andy but says "we need to see that material before I can make a decision to back anyone".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyewjpwgk9t

"Please give me a cabinet post."

If the party "wants to get behind Burnham", why does Carns want to waste a couple of months for him with a leadership election ?

In order to consider a leadership bid, you still need >80 other Labour MPs to think it is a wizard wheeze, don't you?

An interesting question.
I suspect he doesn't, but OTOH there might just be enough pissed off Starmerites to grasp the opportunity of throwing a spanner into the works ?

I think it would be fairly irresponsible at this point, FWIW.

Burnham is facing a pretty steep learning curve as it is.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/23/burnham-and-starmer-hold-frosty-meeting-to-thrash-out-transition-of-power
...Allies of Starmer said that although he was serious about an orderly handover, he had no qualms in denying Burnham – who had initially hoped to take over in September – a long coronation in order to prepare for government.

“There was a strong push from the Burnham camp to be given longer. But why should they tell Keir they want him out, then expect him to manage the ship through a potentially difficult summer? Keir will of course cooperate on transition, but it will be through gritted teeth,” one said.

Some in Burnham’s team were exasperated about the shorter timetable. “The last lot had years to prepare and still fucked it up. We’ll just have to do it in three weeks,” one senior source said. “The length of the transition will focus minds.”.

Stand back a minute. Burnham's team briefed they'd like a longer transition and it was unfair Starmer would be gone in July. In that case, Carns or AN Other running against Burnham would not be a Starmerite spanner in the works. Indeed, it might be that Burnham would arrange it himself. (On the other hand, Burnham does seem to be reverse ferreting on the idea he is not ready and needs the whole summer.)

Two things the next Chancellor should immediately promise are:

1) No more increases in business taxation
2) No more increases in pension taxation

Reeves twice allowing months of speculation about increases in business and pension taxation had detrimental effects on business investment and pension planning.

I'm a pensioner, and most of my friends are now pensioners. It's eccentric to suggest that we should be exempt from tax increases (especially as pensioners tend to vote Tory or Reform anyway). A means-tested increase, including abolition of the right to a state pension if one's already got ample private pension, would meet widespread approval. I appreciate that this would go against promises made in ca. 1945 but really one needs to revisit these things sometimes - someone getting £80K in private pension really doesn't need the national pension.

By pension taxation I meant changing the taxation on pension contributions for current workers.

Although I think you're very wrong that the electorate would accept abolishing the state pension for any individual who had paid their 35+ years of national insurance contributions.