Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
I wonder how many games in this WC are going to finish 11 aside. Hopefully the players will take notice and be a lot more careful but frankly 2 of those red cards seemed absurd to me.
It could go two ways, teams who start later are at an advantage as they learn and adapt to new strange interpretations or as sometimes happens the powers that be aske them to tone it down having started with a no-nonsense disciplinary approach. No idea how it will go. Depends what Donald wants Gianni to do I guess.
We will see how many USA players are sent off.
Any more than 8 of the 24 on the pitch we know the fix is in.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
Sounds like it was written by AI?
I think Carns just don’t want to end up as a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard so he’s getting ahead of it.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
Sounds like it was written by AI?
I think Carns just don’t want to end up as a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard so he’s getting ahead of it.
He's already said he wants to run for leader. Needs Burnham to lose the by-election though.
So, we are spending nearly £60bn on defence this year. We struggle to put a single ship to sea. Our carriers seem to spend all their time in dock. We have a pitiful number of planes. Our army is one of the smallest we have ever had and almost certainly incapable of putting 5k soldiers on the front line for anything other than the briefest of times (which is how long their ammunition would last anyway).
John Healey may well be right that we need to invest in defence but what, as Secretary of State, has he done to improve our return on that £60bn. Last time I checked we had something like 31 flag officers for that frigate that we managed, with a fair bit of effort, to make seaworthy. According to CoPilot, the British Army currently has three full generals, nine lieutenant generals, and approximately 44 major generals on active duty. How many of these are in charge of a platoon? The money blown on the Atlas vehicle is almost beyond belief.
This chronic waste of resources is by no means all Healey's fault, of course, but I see precious little evidence that he has done much, if anything, to improve this chronic situation.
There's certainly a lot of waste and the MoD's procurement process is a disaster that needs nuked from orbit, but I think it's fair to point out that a lot of the current operational issues are down to penny pinching in the last 20 years.
A ship that develops problems gets tied up at Portsmouth because there's no money in this year's budget to fix it. It sits there for two or three years, quietly deteriorating. When the money is found for repairs engineers get aboard and find those years of neglect have caused a whole set of new issues the repair budget can't cover. So it sits there for more months or years, and eventually gets raided for parts, further increasing the cost of actually getting it back into service.
Lack of a stable pipeline for new ships and submarines exacerbates this by forcing the few serviceable units to be worked to death (see Type 23).
MoD procurement has been a problem for decades. In the early 80s Michael Heseltine drafted Peter (now Lord) Levene in to try to sort it. It does seem to be an area that requires root and branch reform. Maybe the shock of the Ukraine war, with the use of droned, will finally initiate something?
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
No plan for government.
Worse than that. I'm not sure any of them has any idea why they are in the business of politics at all other than there's some jobs in it as a spad and well, the other side are worse, so we are the best etc.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
"... It is also one where motherhood is celebrated, and tax rebates are given for apple pies... "
Unless he's articulating how he thinks we should be achieving these goals, it's all just meaningless waffle.
I mean, even the baby eating Tories don't actually want people feeling economically insecure, disfunctional public services, fragile energy supplies, unstable futures or you people bereft of a future, not least because it's all pretty unpopular with the voters.
The problem at present is that everyone wants all these the things, and they all want someone else to pay for it.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Al Carns and Cummings are on the same page as far as machinery of government goes???
On the UK's gravestone it will read "Dominic Cummings was right".
But he thought Brexit was a good idea. He needs some huge entries on the other side of the ledger to counter that. Not sure a perpetual rage against the machine is quite enough.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Easier said than done.
Starmer did have to be Kinnock and Blair (or Hague and Cameron) in a single term. That task- going from internal party cleanup to a new government- is an awful lot to ask, and I don't think it was the plan in 2020. It only really became an issue when the Conservative government exploded in 2022.
The other thing is that the extent of the shitty intray left by the last lot was unusual, and in some ways pretty spiteful. HS2, the prisons fiasco, the unaccounted pay round, the unfunded NI cuts... Sunak and Hunt were not classy people in their second year. And no plan survives being punched in the face.
So yeah, Starmer is a duffer and rapidly moving from "failing" to "failed". But the other stories today are a strong hint that, however mediocre he is, the obvious alternatives are showing themselves to be obviously worse.
Badenoch: worse Burnham: worse Farage: much much worse
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
He's written a similar article before (https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/05/how-labour-can-win-again ). It's long on emotive analysis and very, very short on actual solutions. I don't think he knows how to fix things and he has plummetted in my estimation as a result. Indeed, you could say that about the Labour Party as a whole now, or even the other parties.
SKS will have everyone resigning like Boris did at the end, if he's not careful
Kemi gave an honest answer... Politicians that don't lie and evade and who actually tell the truth, should be applauded. Kemi's gone up another notch in my estimation.
Now, whether I like the answer is another matter...
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Also the economy was basically ok, so the spending taps could be turned on. Not so much this time.
Al Carns and Cummings are on the same page as far as machinery of government goes???
On the UK's gravestone it will read "Dominic Cummings was right".
It really won't. The gravestone will read "It was me, I broke Britain!"
I don't know about that, but he seems to have the biggest ego this side of the Atlantic, and even if for sake of argument he lives up to that ego, in politics you need to be able to persuade people to do what you want them to do, to want to work with you. Bemoaning that no-one listens to you because you act like an arse despite being right all the time is probably satisfying, but even if we don't want slick but empty headed leaders we do still need some with some personal skills, as leading 350 MPs requires some co-operative ability.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Also the economy was basically ok, so the spending taps could be turned on. Not so much this time.
Yes, things are pretty constrained even before you get into the self imposed political straitjackets parties often put themselves in.
And half the country no longer even cares about seeking to grow the economy as a goal, or only in a theoretical sense, so strategies from politicians to improve it often seem piecemeal or half hearted.
Why on earth would Jarvis take this job? Surely he had a shout of a place in the next Cabinet which may now be gone…?
Madness.
No idea why he accepted this.
Someone has to do it. He could always immediately turn on Starmer anyway like Zahawi did with Boris, if he wanted to cement a reputation as a complete snake.
Tonight’s resignations from government are about the kind of leadership our country and this Labour Government needs. And if this government with 3 years to run can meet the considerable national and international challenges and threats.
Is this effectively an attempted military coup? Starmer needs to reassert civilian control and sack anyone involved in plotting against him.
No
Reminds me to finish watching A Very British Coup on YouTube
"...You, the people, must decide whether you prefer to be ruled by an elected government or by people you've never heard of, people you've never voted for. People who remain quietly behind the scenes, generation after generation. Yay, even unto the Middle Ages..."
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Yes. Yes I would. And then I would advocate for it.
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
Are his comments on Northern Ireland prosecutions consistent with being in the Labour party? Maybe he should defect to the Tories.
Whilst that is jest, if wikipedia is right only three MPs have ever gone directly from Labour to the Tories (2 due to opposing nationalisation of steel), the last being 49 years ago.
Which is interesting as 7 Tory MPs have gone the other way in that time.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.
I don't get the strategy/tactics of all these resignations just 7 days before a crucial by-election.
It's not strategy or tactics. It's principle. They weren't prepared to lie to the public by saying that the Defence Investment Plan was great for Britain and it's Defence when they are convinced that it isn't good enough and leaves Britain vulnerable.
That was the choice. The timing was forced by the timing of the final decisions on the plan.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Yes. Yes I would. And then I would advocate for it.
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
I'm not sure if they are, but I know one of the roles of a political leader should be to attempt it a bit more often than they do.
Comments
Also South Korea to beat Czechia overnight at 2.62.
No idea why he accepted this.
Starmer is finished.
Bet she can't believe her luck.
But his former army colleagues will judge him harshly if he swallows the Starmer plan. Which I suspect was the price for accepting the job.
But we shall see
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
Even the Duke of Wellington couldn’t make that work.
Unless he's articulating how he thinks we should be achieving these goals, it's all just meaningless waffle.
I mean, even the baby eating Tories don't actually want people feeling economically insecure, disfunctional public services, fragile energy supplies, unstable futures or you people bereft of a future, not least because it's all pretty unpopular with the voters.
The problem at present is that everyone wants all these the things, and they all want someone else to pay for it.
Benefits not bombs.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
Paul Mason
@paulmasonnews
I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2065187692921373071
Try again Paul.
But can numbers really tell us who's going to win the World Cup?
Dr Josh Bull from @OxfordMathematics explains why it's important to look beyond the headline statistic and ask whether we're actually measuring something meaningful.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0YVN9NhtHkU
Two minutes of dissing spurious statistics.
They are possibly the most improved side in world football. And they are at home.
Which is why Herman Kahn called it Thinking About The Unthinkable.
And decades after his death, morons are still mixing up thinking and planning for something with wanting it to happen.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Starmer did have to be Kinnock and Blair (or Hague and Cameron) in a single term. That task- going from internal party cleanup to a new government- is an awful lot to ask, and I don't think it was the plan in 2020. It only really became an issue when the Conservative government exploded in 2022.
The other thing is that the extent of the shitty intray left by the last lot was unusual, and in some ways pretty spiteful. HS2, the prisons fiasco, the unaccounted pay round, the unfunded NI cuts... Sunak and Hunt were not classy people in their second year. And no plan survives being punched in the face.
So yeah, Starmer is a duffer and rapidly moving from "failing" to "failed". But the other stories today are a strong hint that, however mediocre he is, the obvious alternatives are showing themselves to be obviously worse.
Badenoch: worse
Burnham: worse
Farage: much much worse
Kemi gave an honest answer... Politicians that don't lie and evade and who actually tell the truth, should be applauded. Kemi's gone up another notch in my estimation.
Now, whether I like the answer is another matter...
That isn't going to change.
Do you make that speech or resign to avoid doing so knowing that if you resign chances are new management will welcome you back in a few weeks time
And half the country no longer even cares about seeking to grow the economy as a goal, or only in a theoretical sense, so strategies from politicians to improve it often seem piecemeal or half hearted.
Dan Carden
@DanCardenMP
Tonight’s resignations from government are about the kind of leadership our country and this Labour Government needs. And if this government with 3 years to run can meet the considerable national and international challenges and threats.
https://x.com/DanCardenMP/status/2065175781022871736
https://youtu.be/V-fZQzj3Pms?si=6mAuS_9wBUJWOcmS&t=2711
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
Which is interesting as 7 Tory MPs have gone the other way in that time.
There are more productive ways to spend the money
That was the choice. The timing was forced by the timing of the final decisions on the plan.