The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
@MaxPB implied yesterday that it has got a lot worse of late (but maybe I misinterpreted him)
If it has got worse, then that explains her pale and drawn appearance, and lacklustre performance as a minister. She’s basically invisible
Greek. GREEK 10 yr rate is 3.73%, our 10 yr yield is a mind boggling 5.115%.
How about that.
Very drachmatic.
We're in desperate trouble.
We have two choices - driest, tightest gov't (Benefit cuts, pension freezes, pension age to 75, insurance based healthcare system and so on) or join the Euro. Since Nige is riding high, the Eurozone won't take us with a seemingly imminent Reform Gov't coming in so it's going to have to be proper massive cuts (Tax rises will just hit the economy even more). Neither Labour nor Reform is likely going to cut properly so we're fucked.
Greek. GREEK 10 yr rate is 3.73%, our 10 yr yield is a mind boggling 5.115%.
How about that.
Very drachmatic.
We're in desperate trouble.
We have two choices - driest, tightest gov't (Benefit cuts, pension freezes, pension age to 75, insurance based healthcare system and so on) or join the Euro. Since Nige is riding high, the Eurozone won't take us with a seemingly imminent Reform Gov't coming in so it's going to have to be proper massive cuts (Tax rises will just hit the economy even more). Neither Labour nor Reform is likely going to cut properly so we're fucked.
So you’re saying - civil war? David Betz will be pleased
It's called Cambridge South, yet the existing station is already south of the town?
Meanwhile the new Oxford to Cambridge line is built and open, but is carrying no passenger trains at all, because the operator won't run them with driver and guard and the union won't run them with just a driver. So the intermediate stations sit, empty and unused.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
This is so obvious, yet no-one has the guts to do it. There is a shared assumption the bond markets won't let us - I think that is wrong and the bond markets are aware enough to be able to differentiate between investment and current spending. Another long term damage from the Truss regime is that limiting view being re-enforced.
I think borrowing to invest is fine. But borrowing to invest and to fund current spending and to pay for debt interest is not.
If you want to fund investment with borrowing that's fine, but I think you still need to cut spending and/or raise taxes so that you're not also borrowing for current spending and to pay debt interest at the same time.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
That remark is exceedingly unkind. Jabba was a fine figure of a Hutt.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
This is so obvious, yet no-one has the guts to do it. There is a shared assumption the bond markets won't let us - I think that is wrong and the bond markets are aware enough to be able to differentiate between investment and current spending. Another long term damage from the Truss regime is that limiting view being re-enforced.
I think borrowing to invest is fine. But borrowing to invest and to fund current spending and to pay for debt interest is not.
If you want to fund investment with borrowing that's fine, but I think you still need to cut spending and/or raise taxes so that you're not also borrowing for current spending and to pay debt interest at the same time.
Thanks to Gordo, the meaning of the word investmenrt has become completely debased.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
In a long career working with NMR spectroscopy the number of occasions when I have been told 'there is something wrong with the spectrometer' when some data looks dodgy vastly outweighs the number of times that there actually IS something wrong with the spectrometer.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
This is so obvious, yet no-one has the guts to do it. There is a shared assumption the bond markets won't let us - I think that is wrong and the bond markets are aware enough to be able to differentiate between investment and current spending. Another long term damage from the Truss regime is that limiting view being re-enforced.
I've been banging this same drum for ages. We're spending money wrong. We say we have no money to spend on basic maintenance, never mind to invest. And then we have to find the cash to deal with the deepening crises caused by the lack of basic maintenance.
The key to all of this is hope. Give people optimism about the future and we can turn this around. And the only way to do that is to invest money into the places where we live.
Here’s an evening mystery to take our minds off the Labour fandango
For a while I’ve been buying 17th-18th century Delft tiles and turning them into coasters. They are superb at this. Just spray the back with lacquer, if needed. Add felt feet. Done
You have a magical piece of European history repurposed
But this one is my favourite, so it’s on my bedside table. Because it is so enigmatic
It appears to show a cloven hoofed demon walking past an idling amorous couple, where the man has given up his shovel. So the demon is condemning idle love? Or indolence? And yet, look more closely. Both humans are male. Bearded. And they seem to be perfectly happy. And the demon actually looks like he might be blessing them
My guess right now is that this hand painted tile was done by a dissident delft gay tile artist, sneaking his perverse sexuality past the Protestant mores of the day and quietly celebrating man love
Here’s an evening mystery to take our minds off the Labour fandango
For a while I’ve been buying 17th-18th century Delft tiles and turning them into coasters. They are superb at this. Just spray the back with lacquer, if needed. Add felt feet. Done
You have a magical piece of European history repurposed
But this one is my favourite, so it’s on my bedside table. Because it is so enigmatic
It appears to show a cloven hoofed demon walking past an idling amorous couple, where the man has given up his shovel. So the demon is condemning idle love? Or indolence? And yet, look more closely. Both humans are male. Bearded. And they seem to be perfectly happy. And the demon actually looks like he might be blessing them
My guess right now is that this hand painted tile was done by a dissident delft gay tile artist, sneaking his perverse sexuality past the Protestant mores of the day and quietly celebrating man love
Isn’t it just the Devil pointing out his approval of workers idling in the fields? Could have been part of a set on the seven deadly sins.
Again that was my thought. But look closely: the couple are clearly in an amorous position. One leans warmly into the other. They are almost kissing
So then it is the devil approving of gay sex in idle farm-workers? Was that a massive issue in 17th century Holland? Did the tulips go unpicked because too many butch young rustic chaps were getting it on in the dykes??
I love this tile. Every time I look at it I see something new and change my mind. Normal coasters don’t do this
I thought that was your state of being, irrespective of external stimulus ?
I’m now drinking my morning coffee from my £16 ANTIQUE COFFEE CAN (NB @turbotubbs - you still haven’t apologised) and I’m looking at it again and I’ve noticed the lower figure has his hand on the other guy’s thigh. Squeezing it?
So, definitely sexual. Yet I’ve also noticed the upper figure is slightly female in shape despite the beard. Is this about women cross dressing as men, on pleasant Dutch farms, so they can seduce workers and undermine 17th century Dutch farming production?
Quite a complex message. For a tile
What do you want an apology for again? I said I wouldn’t buy two of them as I don’t think they are quite as old as claimed. I’ve not insulted you family line, or suggested you think two chaps resting in a field are early homosexuals because you have dark thoughts about your own sexuality. If the6 make you happy, go for it.
Because
1. You implied that I’m a fool being duped, when I’m not. These cups are not fake, they are the real thing, they ARE that cheap, they are exactly that old (we know the precise patterns used by English porcelain manufacturers in specific years)
So, you were totally wrong. Admit it
Also
2. You waded in on a subject about which you know nothing - and, worse, you did it with a bogus air of authority. I find this personally and utterly objectionable
I don't know why I'm bothering to engage, but its more fun than endless waffle about will he/won't he. I didn't imply you were a fool, just suggested that the first and third may not be as old as you think (more 1840's). Use of applied patterning started in the mid 18th century but these look more recent. I may be wrong.
I learnt everything I know about the antiques trade from John Grant.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
This is so obvious, yet no-one has the guts to do it. There is a shared assumption the bond markets won't let us - I think that is wrong and the bond markets are aware enough to be able to differentiate between investment and current spending. Another long term damage from the Truss regime is that limiting view being re-enforced.
I think borrowing to invest is fine. But borrowing to invest and to fund current spending and to pay for debt interest is not.
If you want to fund investment with borrowing that's fine, but I think you still need to cut spending and/or raise taxes so that you're not also borrowing for current spending and to pay debt interest at the same time.
Thanks to Gordo, the meaning of the word investmenrt has become completely debased.
Well, that's true in terms of British political discourse, but I would hope that the AI models used by the finance wizkids to do their bond market trading would still draw a distinction between spending on, say, transport infrastructure that would increase economic performance, and other spending.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
In the new world order, every unaffordable option is of course available via 3 easy payments.....terms and conditions apply....failure to make each payment will occue interest and fees.....klarna for government spending....
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Universities, airport, culture, sport, investment in new housing, transport and city centre across recent decades.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
If they dont like the current inflation and interest rates, they are gonna really love them after some Zackonomics.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Universities, airport, culture, sport, investment in new housing, transport and city centre across recent decades.
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Not with labour's majority
Turkey's don't vote for Christmas
Labour MPs don’t vote for swingeing welfare cuts, either. So if the markets demand that, and yet MPs won’t oblige? Either we default and go bankrupt - which means massive welfare cuts anyway - or we have an election
Or massive tax rises on the rich to pay for it from Rayner or Burnham or Ed Miliband
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Here’s an evening mystery to take our minds off the Labour fandango
For a while I’ve been buying 17th-18th century Delft tiles and turning them into coasters. They are superb at this. Just spray the back with lacquer, if needed. Add felt feet. Done
You have a magical piece of European history repurposed
But this one is my favourite, so it’s on my bedside table. Because it is so enigmatic
It appears to show a cloven hoofed demon walking past an idling amorous couple, where the man has given up his shovel. So the demon is condemning idle love? Or indolence? And yet, look more closely. Both humans are male. Bearded. And they seem to be perfectly happy. And the demon actually looks like he might be blessing them
My guess right now is that this hand painted tile was done by a dissident delft gay tile artist, sneaking his perverse sexuality past the Protestant mores of the day and quietly celebrating man love
Isn’t it just the Devil pointing out his approval of workers idling in the fields? Could have been part of a set on the seven deadly sins.
Again that was my thought. But look closely: the couple are clearly in an amorous position. One leans warmly into the other. They are almost kissing
So then it is the devil approving of gay sex in idle farm-workers? Was that a massive issue in 17th century Holland? Did the tulips go unpicked because too many butch young rustic chaps were getting it on in the dykes??
I love this tile. Every time I look at it I see something new and change my mind. Normal coasters don’t do this
I thought that was your state of being, irrespective of external stimulus ?
I’m now drinking my morning coffee from my £16 ANTIQUE COFFEE CAN (NB @turbotubbs - you still haven’t apologised) and I’m looking at it again and I’ve noticed the lower figure has his hand on the other guy’s thigh. Squeezing it?
So, definitely sexual. Yet I’ve also noticed the upper figure is slightly female in shape despite the beard. Is this about women cross dressing as men, on pleasant Dutch farms, so they can seduce workers and undermine 17th century Dutch farming production?
Quite a complex message. For a tile
What do you want an apology for again? I said I wouldn’t buy two of them as I don’t think they are quite as old as claimed. I’ve not insulted you family line, or suggested you think two chaps resting in a field are early homosexuals because you have dark thoughts about your own sexuality. If the6 make you happy, go for it.
Because
1. You implied that I’m a fool being duped, when I’m not. These cups are not fake, they are the real thing, they ARE that cheap, they are exactly that old (we know the precise patterns used by English porcelain manufacturers in specific years)
So, you were totally wrong. Admit it
Also
2. You waded in on a subject about which you know nothing - and, worse, you did it with a bogus air of authority. I find this personally and utterly objectionable
Just to be clear, you are suggesting that people on PB should apologise for having a "bogus air of authority"? Have you thought this through?
The quotes are fecked but I like to think we are his carers. I worry about that gigantic brain being left on its own thinking thoughts.
Here’s an evening mystery to take our minds off the Labour fandango
For a while I’ve been buying 17th-18th century Delft tiles and turning them into coasters. They are superb at this. Just spray the back with lacquer, if needed. Add felt feet. Done
You have a magical piece of European history repurposed
But this one is my favourite, so it’s on my bedside table. Because it is so enigmatic
It appears to show a cloven hoofed demon walking past an idling amorous couple, where the man has given up his shovel. So the demon is condemning idle love? Or indolence? And yet, look more closely. Both humans are male. Bearded. And they seem to be perfectly happy. And the demon actually looks like he might be blessing them
My guess right now is that this hand painted tile was done by a dissident delft gay tile artist, sneaking his perverse sexuality past the Protestant mores of the day and quietly celebrating man love
Here’s an evening mystery to take our minds off the Labour fandango
For a while I’ve been buying 17th-18th century Delft tiles and turning them into coasters. They are superb at this. Just spray the back with lacquer, if needed. Add felt feet. Done
You have a magical piece of European history repurposed
But this one is my favourite, so it’s on my bedside table. Because it is so enigmatic
It appears to show a cloven hoofed demon walking past an idling amorous couple, where the man has given up his shovel. So the demon is condemning idle love? Or indolence? And yet, look more closely. Both humans are male. Bearded. And they seem to be perfectly happy. And the demon actually looks like he might be blessing them
My guess right now is that this hand painted tile was done by a dissident delft gay tile artist, sneaking his perverse sexuality past the Protestant mores of the day and quietly celebrating man love
Isn’t it just the Devil pointing out his approval of workers idling in the fields? Could have been part of a set on the seven deadly sins.
Again that was my thought. But look closely: the couple are clearly in an amorous position. One leans warmly into the other. They are almost kissing
So then it is the devil approving of gay sex in idle farm-workers? Was that a massive issue in 17th century Holland? Did the tulips go unpicked because too many butch young rustic chaps were getting it on in the dykes??
I love this tile. Every time I look at it I see something new and change my mind. Normal coasters don’t do this
I thought that was your state of being, irrespective of external stimulus ?
I’m now drinking my morning coffee from my £16 ANTIQUE COFFEE CAN (NB @turbotubbs - you still haven’t apologised) and I’m looking at it again and I’ve noticed the lower figure has his hand on the other guy’s thigh. Squeezing it?
So, definitely sexual. Yet I’ve also noticed the upper figure is slightly female in shape despite the beard. Is this about women cross dressing as men, on pleasant Dutch farms, so they can seduce workers and undermine 17th century Dutch farming production?
Quite a complex message. For a tile
What do you want an apology for again? I said I wouldn’t buy two of them as I don’t think they are quite as old as claimed. I’ve not insulted you family line, or suggested you think two chaps resting in a field are early homosexuals because you have dark thoughts about your own sexuality. If the6 make you happy, go for it.
Because
1. You implied that I’m a fool being duped, when I’m not. These cups are not fake, they are the real thing, they ARE that cheap, they are exactly that old (we know the precise patterns used by English porcelain manufacturers in specific years)
So, you were totally wrong. Admit it
Also
2. You waded in on a subject about which you know nothing - and, worse, you did it with a bogus air of authority. I find this personally and utterly objectionable
I don't know why I'm bothering to engage, but its more fun than endless waffle about will he/won't he. I didn't imply you were a fool, just suggested that the first and third may not be as old as you think (more 1840's). Use of applied patterning started in the mid 18th century but these look more recent. I may be wrong.
I learnt everything I know about the antiques trade from John Grant.
You’re wrong. The patterns are known and identifiable
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which philosopher argued against democracy on the grounds that at some point the electorate would always decide to vote themselves a big pay rise?
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
You miss one vital ingredient; lots and lots of Chinese money. Now accompanied by lots of Chinese.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
I remember reading John O Farrell's actually quite funny political memoir "Things can only get better" in which he belatedly comes up with an esprit d'escalier argument of "who elected this 'market' bloke then?", which he mysteriously thinks quite clever - the answer of course being that we as a country did when we voted for parties who spend more than they raise in tax powers. You can quite happily take no heed of the market if you're not in billions of pounds of debt to them. But once you are in billions of pounds of debt it is them, rather than voters, that you are answerable to. The Labour party might well point to the increasing indebtedness of the Conservative years, but might reasonably ask themselves when during those years they were calling for moderation of public spending. And not keeping the markets happy will result in the electorate being very very unhappy, as tin-pot economies the world over have demonstrated time and time again.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Universities, airport, culture, sport, investment in new housing, transport and city centre across recent decades.
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Not with labour's majority
Turkey's don't vote for Christmas
Labour MPs don’t vote for swingeing welfare cuts, either. So if the markets demand that, and yet MPs won’t oblige? Either we default and go bankrupt - which means massive welfare cuts anyway - or we have an election
Or massive tax rises on the rich to pay for it from Rayner or Burnham or Ed Miliband
Dubai is definitely looking forward to that, will help the sandpit’s recovery no end.
Well, if we're being all high brow, I'm about halfway through The Broken Seals, the first volume of The Marshes of Mount Liang. It's the full version (120 chapters), and the 100 chapter version by Sidney Shapiro[sp] is one of my favourite books.
I'm really rather enjoying it. There are many variations I've noticed (not reading them side-by-side) such as Panther Head Lin Chong becoming Leopard Head, and Nine Dragons Shi Jin becoming the Tattooed Dragon (or similar).
Fantastic story. Think of Robin Hood, set in Ancient China, directed by Quentin Tarantino (but with less women/feet), on a scale of Lord of the Rings. Action all over the place.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
Having grown up in Rochdale I can confirm it was no different in the 80s as it is today - a satellite town of Manchester. Indeed GM has the problem of too many of these satellite towns too close to Manchester (and remember that "Manchester" is Manchester/Salford/Trafford).
We're also in the new world of having high streets die as big chains struggle and property is left to rot by big capital.
Rochdale is a prime example. Two indoor malls - one half empty, the other newer one abandoned), a main shopping street largely shuttered, and a new outdoor smaller mall. Literally not enough shops to fill the space. So I would CPI both indoor malls, flatten the older one and transfer shops into the newer one. Redevelop the site of the 70s one. CPI most of the shuttered shops on Yorkshire Street and convert them into mixed use retail / residential. And open enterprise arcades where small retail outlets can have a shop space for peppercorn rent as Stockton on Tees have done so successfully.
The model is there, you just need politicians with imagination to go at it.
If there was loads of money to splash Labour would have done that already .
Some of these Labour resignations and calls for Starmer to resign seem to ignore this and think a new leader will find a pile of money for their pet projects.
I’m beginning to think Starmer should hang on as the alternatives are starting to look even worse .
Whether these MPs like it or not you can’t sustain a loss in confidence from the markets.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which philosopher argued against democracy on the grounds that at some point the electorate would always decide to vote themselves a big pay rise?
George Bernard Shaw: 'A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.'
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
You miss one vital ingredient; lots and lots of Chinese money. Now accompanied by lots of Chinese.
Where did I say most of the investment was domestic? But that is true in any big city now.
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Well if Labour do change PM I really, really hope all those who banged on about the Tories needing to hold a GE as there was NO mandate for the new PM, will do the same.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Devaluation and inflation won't fix anything. What is really needed is economic growth
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Well if Labour do change PM I really, really hope all those who banged on about the Tories needing to hold a GE as there was NO mandate for the new PM, will do the same.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
This is so obvious, yet no-one has the guts to do it. There is a shared assumption the bond markets won't let us - I think that is wrong and the bond markets are aware enough to be able to differentiate between investment and current spending. Another long term damage from the Truss regime is that limiting view being re-enforced.
How much investment is the Mayor of Manchester making in the city? Under what programs is the money being spent?
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Devaluation and inflation won't fix anything. What is really needed is economic growth
I should have added significant deregulation as another option. Government getting out of the way and letting people build things.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Universities, airport, culture, sport, investment in new housing, transport and city centre across recent decades.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
Having grown up in Rochdale I can confirm it was no different in the 80s as it is today - a satellite town of Manchester. Indeed GM has the problem of too many of these satellite towns too close to Manchester (and remember that "Manchester" is Manchester/Salford/Trafford).
We're also in the new world of having high streets die as big chains struggle and property is left to rot by big capital.
Rochdale is a prime example. Two indoor malls - one half empty, the other newer one abandoned), a main shopping street largely shuttered, and a new outdoor smaller mall. Literally not enough shops to fill the space. So I would CPI both indoor malls, flatten the older one and transfer shops into the newer one. Redevelop the site of the 70s one. CPI most of the shuttered shops on Yorkshire Street and convert them into mixed use retail / residential. And open enterprise arcades where small retail outlets can have a shop space for peppercorn rent as Stockton on Tees have done so successfully.
The model is there, you just need politicians with imagination to go at it.
Is this an example of where having a regional Mayor can give that political impetus?
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
Manchester is growing because of investment. You can't cut your way to growth, you have to invest in it. This is a lesson that we seem to have forgotten collectively because business has stopped investing as well.\
Manchester had a crisis event - the IRA bomb. Which forced spending on regeneration. Richard Leese and Graham Stringer had a vision to bring life back to a city centre that had been abandoned. So cash was spent. Places for people to live and eat and shop. Which brought people in and with it more investment. Cash spent on public transport to get them around. Bringing more people and more investment.
How do you then harness these people? Another crisis - the arena bomb. We're all in this together, worker bees pulling together collectively for the community. You're working not just for yourself.
This is what Manchester has done. Regeneration through both investment and community pride. And we can have that everywhere, but we need someone to push the vision. We can borrow to invest - the markets want long term projects. We can't borrow to give the cash away as one-off handouts.
For all that we need new houses, we have vast numbers of old houses sat there rotting. Buy the whole area, refit and redevelop. Make them habitable and the people will come in and the money follows. How do you fix Blackpool and Skegness and the other shitholes? Mass civic redevelopment. Paid for by civic bonds and from the cash you save by not having to pay for squalor and decline.
You miss one vital ingredient; lots and lots of Chinese money. Now accompanied by lots of Chinese.
One clue that Manchester rebuilding is substantially funded by Chinese money is the unnecessary height of the buildings. Stereotyping maybe but the Chinese do love their high-rise living.
Should add Manchester used to, and maybe still does haven't checked, have the largest Chinese community in Europe.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Manchester is probably growing more with Burnham than because of him.
The fundamentals were already there: multiple universities, airport, transport links, media, finance, London pricing people out, critical mass etc. Once a city hit can tick all these boxes it tends to keep compounding.
What Burnham has probably done well is give Greater Manchester coherent political leadership and push sensible devolved transport integration - his Bee Network is actually pretty good.
The harder question is whether Manchester’s success can be replicated elsewhere or whether it simply becomes the North’s version of London, hoovering up talent and investment from surrounding towns.
If you compare with European countries, our cities outside of London massively underperform economically.
Basically a combination of excessive concentration of political power in London, and central government starving the regions of investment. Solving that isn't particularly complicated, but it would require a lot of political will, and the results, while potentially game changing for the economy, would take years to show through.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Devaluation and inflation won't fix anything. What is really needed is economic growth
And that means wanting economic growth, really wanting it. Demanding policies that are more likely to make us richer, binning policies that get in the way.
As things stand, there are other things (nice views from our windows, enough sovereignty to give us the patriotic horn, early retirement, high house prices) that enough people want more.
The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
@MaxPB implied yesterday that it has got a lot worse of late (but maybe I misinterpreted him)
If it has got worse, then that explains her pale and drawn appearance, and lacklustre performance as a minister. She’s basically invisible
Sympathies to Yvette, if so
Again aiui not a lot worse ATM but enough that the stress and pressure of being PM would make it substantially worse. I'd be very, very surprised if she ran. Not just because of the medical stuff but also because I get a sense that she thinks she's from a previous era of Labour. I think she'd make a decent chancellor in the new Cabinet and that might be what she trades her support for.
The other thing to say about the bond market is that in many respects they're remarkably lenient - I guess there's a lot of money sloshing around looking for a safe harbour. Britain has been able to borrow an astonishing amount of money over the last ~two decades, and hasn't spent it on all that much of use, and the bond market has been largely fine with it, because Britain has always had a halfway plausible plan to be able to pay it back in the future.
I think there are lots of ways that a future Green government, or a new Labour PM determined to spend more, can increase spending, provided that they are able to provide the bond market with a halfway plausible plan for being able to pay it back in the future. It's not a very high bar. But there are a lot of people around determined not to meet it, determined not to learn the lesson of the Truss Calamity.
The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
@MaxPB implied yesterday that it has got a lot worse of late (but maybe I misinterpreted him)
If it has got worse, then that explains her pale and drawn appearance, and lacklustre performance as a minister. She’s basically invisible
Sympathies to Yvette, if so
she has always been crap illness or not , how she ever got where she has is a mystery that is totally unexplainable. As much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
That building is not the train station. The train station is to the left of this photograph. That is the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Its been there for years, and is actually quite a nice building from the right angles. https://x.com/peterrhague/status/2054116479595880689
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
On Greater Manchester: clearly Manchester itself is doing well. But it's not at the expense of all the other towns: Altrincham is doing very well indeed, Stockport is on the up and despite perhaps a more downbeat retail offer than it was in the 80s is doing rather better than ever, Bury is doing all right. Manchester is not sucking the life out of those places. Wigan is not thriving, but - and I'd invite e.g. @dixiedean 's view here - seems to be doing no worse than at any time in the last 30 years. Ditto Tameside. But Rochdale (civic motto: "it could be worse, look at Oldham") and Oldham are awful and Bolton has declined massively in my lifetime.
Every day, when I wake up, I thank the Lord I don't live in Oldham.
I don't think this is cities sucking the life out of towns. I think this is towns thriving or failing for reasons of their own.
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Well if Labour do change PM I really, really hope all those who banged on about the Tories needing to hold a GE as there was NO mandate for the new PM, will do the same.
I suspect I will not hear much from them.
There's no obligation for a Prime Minister to "seek a mandate" as soon as they enter No.10 if they have not come through the GE route.
John Major waited about as long as he could as did Gordon Brown. May sought her mandate in just under a year while Sunak was about a year and a half.
Obviously, unless forced by the timetable or other circumstances (Sunak), no Prime Minister is going to go to the country until they have to or unless the political winds look favourable and as Theresa May aptly demonstrated, they may look favourable at the start of the campaign but that doesn't mean they'll end looking so favourable.
As for Boris Johnson, he inherited a dire polling situation forthe Conservatives but that position improved steadily and inexorably during the latter part of 2019 allowing him to choose a December election safe in the knowledge he would win.
Brown had a brief "honeymoon" where he might have won an election but Osborne's famous speech at the Conservative Conference ended that. Could any new PM enjoy a honeymoon and be tempted to take advantage? I can't see it.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
Which might be fine if there wasn’t £2.9trn, 94% of GDP, of public sector net debt that needs servicing.
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Devaluation and inflation won't fix anything. What is really needed is economic growth
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Well if Labour do change PM I really, really hope all those who banged on about the Tories needing to hold a GE as there was NO mandate for the new PM, will do the same.
I suspect I will not hear much from them.
There's no obligation for a Prime Minister to "seek a mandate" as soon as they enter No.10 if they have not come through the GE route.
John Major waited about as long as he could as did Gordon Brown. May sought her mandate in just under a year while Sunak was about a year and a half.
Obviously, unless forced by the timetable or other circumstances (Sunak), no Prime Minister is going to go to the country until they have to or unless the political winds look favourable and as Theresa May aptly demonstrated, they may look favourable at the start of the campaign but that doesn't mean they'll end looking so favourable.
As for Boris Johnson, he inherited a dire polling situation forthe Conservatives but that position improved steadily and inexorably during the latter part of 2019 allowing him to choose a December election safe in the knowledge he would win.
Brown had a brief "honeymoon" where he might have won an election but Osborne's famous speech at the Conservative Conference ended that. Could any new PM enjoy a honeymoon and be tempted to take advantage? I can't see it.
I know all this - my point was the constant 'general election now' crap from non Tories.
If Burnham could put aside his personal hubris, he should realise that he and his legacy would do far better if he remained Mayor of GM, with a reputation of being"the best Prime Minister we never had", because let's face it, based on his previous tenure in the Commons, did he ever really achieve anything of note?
Why do people think that as PM he would be able to do a significantly better job than any of the recent incumbents?
We live in extraordinary times, and we need an extraordinary leader. I just don't see one lurking in any of the current parties, sadly. They've all been caught up in the populist trend - I must give my supporters what they want, not what they need.
As Bunrham is the only Labour contender who clearly outpolls Farage
He might do better in polling - initially, but when he fails to solve the problems of the country, as he surely will (he may give some voters what they want, to the ire of the rest) hell just be another failed leader.
I can't see party that is going to solve the problems of the country so your analysis pretty much applies to every party. Anyone who believes Reform or the Greens will do it is delusional I'm afraid. I suspect Farage is secretly terrified of becoming PM and actually having to deliver things like a successful Brexit and stopping illegal immigration.
The majority of the country will never be happy until they are given the moon on a stick for free.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
Having grown up in Rochdale I can confirm it was no different in the 80s as it is today - a satellite town of Manchester. Indeed GM has the problem of too many of these satellite towns too close to Manchester (and remember that "Manchester" is Manchester/Salford/Trafford).
We're also in the new world of having high streets die as big chains struggle and property is left to rot by big capital.
Rochdale is a prime example. Two indoor malls - one half empty, the other newer one abandoned), a main shopping street largely shuttered, and a new outdoor smaller mall. Literally not enough shops to fill the space. So I would CPI both indoor malls, flatten the older one and transfer shops into the newer one. Redevelop the site of the 70s one. CPI most of the shuttered shops on Yorkshire Street and convert them into mixed use retail / residential. And open enterprise arcades where small retail outlets can have a shop space for peppercorn rent as Stockton on Tees have done so successfully.
The model is there, you just need politicians with imagination to go at it.
"Revive the high streets" has been a Canute like policy of government for a couple of decades. Towns need people living in them far more than they need another scheme to subsidise retail.
The nurses doing double shifts. The teachers who stay late. The plumbers, the carers, the small builders, the people running shops. The graduates trying to build a life. The founders who chose to build something here.
Britain has stopped being a country that backs them.
Over 40 years of political choices Britain has built an economy where owning things pays better than building them.
Holding scarce land. Holding protected market positions. Holding the right credentials. Holding the right postcode. Gaming process. Capturing public money meant for someone else.
These have become safer routes to reward than working, investing, teaching, caring, manufacturing or taking productive risk.
This isn't a conspiracy. It's the predictable result of a state that has lost the ability to build, decide, enforce and shape markets in the public interest.
The planning system rations land. The energy system rations power. Capital fails to scale British firms. Regulation protects incumbents and crushes challengers. Tax falls hard on work and lightly on position.
Government compensates people for the costs this creates. But in rationed markets, that compensation is often captured by the same scarcity that made it necessary. Public money flows through broken systems and strengthens the very interests that broke them.
Fiscal space shrinks. The state becomes more cautious, less capable, more dependent on the processes that created the failure. The loop tightens.
An Honest Day is a new economic settlement for Britain. The shift required is from a distributive state to a capable one. Support people now. Reform the scarcity that makes support necessary. Reward action, not position.
How long is it going to take to realise the game is up. Even if he managed somehow to sack his way to.survival today, the chabllenge will be back after the next relaunch in a few months, i mean weeks, i mean days time.
Ministers resign regularly, it needs senior ministers to quit to give it ballast and momentum.
The most worrying thing is that minister quitting thinks we haven't been spending enough money. No wonder our debt is getting repriced like it's a Wonga payday loan.
Much to my annoyance I know a lot of Green voters, last weekend, not for the first time, they were all saying governments don't have to make the markets happy, they should ignore the markets, governments should focus on making the electorate happy.
If they dont like the current inflation and interest rates, they are gonna really love them after some Zackonomics.
It will require this country to hit rock bottom before the swathes of ignoraniuses realise that profit is not an immoral or dirty byproduct of economic activity, but the entire purpose and driver of it. The trouble is, rock bottom might be far deeper than any of imagine - see Argentina or Zimbabwe (or Western Rome)!
What i find odd about Starmer having to be dragged kicking and screaming out.of #10 is the claim was he never really wanted to be PM, it was stop Jezza and that if he did get elected it would be one term max and he doesnt look like a man who enjoys being PM at all (other foreign jollies, which the off ramp people are giving him is go be foreign secretary).
Even now, with his back against the wall and calls for his resignation, he's talking about the "process" and doing things properly. In some ways, I quite admire the chutzpah - "if you want to get rid of me, do it properly".
Can't help but think that if they don't do it properly, he'll sue them for constructive or unfair dismissal...
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Manchester is probably growing more with Burnham than because of him.
The fundamentals were already there: multiple universities, airport, transport links, media, finance, London pricing people out, critical mass etc. Once a city hit can tick all these boxes it tends to keep compounding.
What Burnham has probably done well is give Greater Manchester coherent political leadership and push sensible devolved transport integration - his Bee Network is actually pretty good.
The harder question is whether Manchester’s success can be replicated elsewhere or whether it simply becomes the North’s version of London, hoovering up talent and investment from surrounding towns.
If you compare with European countries, our cities outside of London massively underperform economically.
Basically a combination of excessive concentration of political power in London, and central government starving the regions of investment. Solving that isn't particularly complicated, but it would require a lot of political will, and the results, while potentially game changing for the economy, would take years to show through.
In the 19th Century the City of York Corporation built 3 bridges in about a 750 metre stretch. These were all authorised by Westminster but, crucially, they were all funded by borrowing by the City and the city was given the option of either charging a toll, taking it from local rates, or combination of the both. The terms were strict; loans were required to be paid back over a fixed period and at the end the bridges had to become free. They were also never allowed to pay off less than 1/loan period per year.
There is really no reason why modern Leeds should not be able to do something similar. Except - of course - it would reduce London's power over the regions.
The other thing to say about the bond market is that in many respects they're remarkably lenient - I guess there's a lot of money sloshing around looking for a safe harbour. Britain has been able to borrow an astonishing amount of money over the last ~two decades, and hasn't spent it on all that much of use, and the bond market has been largely fine with it, because Britain has always had a halfway plausible plan to be able to pay it back in the future.
I think there are lots of ways that a future Green government, or a new Labour PM determined to spend more, can increase spending, provided that they are able to provide the bond market with a halfway plausible plan for being able to pay it back in the future. It's not a very high bar. But there are a lot of people around determined not to meet it, determined not to learn the lesson of the Truss Calamity.
And UK debt as compared to GDP is high, but not out of line with many other countries. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/CG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CHN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA gives 2024 figures. The UK is at 101%, while above us are Portugal (102%), the US (103%), Italy (133%), Bahrain (134%), Greece (170%), Singapore (177%), Japan (201%) and Taiwan (245%!!!). France and Spain (94%) are not much below us.
The foreign sec is not a runner because she is said to be physically unfit for the role.
This isn't a criticism of you @moonshine. Rather it's a criticism of those who say the Foreign Secretary is "physically unfit". I'll hold my hand up - I didn't know she had suffered from ME. I had to Google it to find out if it was true. She was in early twenties when she experienced it and she has since recovered. It hasn't prevented her from being CSX, DWP Secretary, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Home Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. I can't imagine flying around the world is ideal for somebody who may or may not be "physically unfit" but there you go. It hasn't prevented her from seeing off challenges in her constituency and being reelected at every election since 1997. It hasn't prevented her from sitting in the Shadow Cabinet. And on top of that, she's married to Ed Balls.
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
@MaxPB implied yesterday that it has got a lot worse of late (but maybe I misinterpreted him)
If it has got worse, then that explains her pale and drawn appearance, and lacklustre performance as a minister. She’s basically invisible
Sympathies to Yvette, if so
she has always been crap illness or not , how she ever got where she has is a mystery that is totally unexplainable. As much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Deputy PM all told him to go. Defence Secretary.
Health Secretary has told him he'll stand if a contest is declared. And West now has the numbers.
I get the stand and fight bit. But he has to show authority which means sacking the rebels.
Can’t help feeling that whoever replaces Starmer is going to run into exactly the same constraints that the current government faces, both monetary and political.
None of them seem to have any actual policy ideas that the current government is not implementing. Am I missing some grand political strategy any of them have signed up to?
At least you knew what Corbyn / MacDonnell stood for.
That building is not the train station. The train station is to the left of this photograph. That is the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Its been there for years, and is actually quite a nice building from the right angles. https://x.com/peterrhague/status/2054116479595880689
Did anyone say it’s the train station on X? They said it’s hideous. And it is
It was me on here that misconstrued. Mind you it is hideous. Utterly hideous
And we’re off. Real world response to Labour’s current psychodrama: bank stocks are being sold off, gilts spiked 10% at opening and the pound fell 0.5% against the dollar.
The yield on 30-year debt has just hit its highest level since 1998.
GENERAL ELECTION INCOMING
Seriously, what are the odds on a GE in 2026? They might be VALUE
Well if Labour do change PM I really, really hope all those who banged on about the Tories needing to hold a GE as there was NO mandate for the new PM, will do the same.
I suspect I will not hear much from them.
There's no obligation for a Prime Minister to "seek a mandate" as soon as they enter No.10 if they have not come through the GE route.
John Major waited about as long as he could as did Gordon Brown. May sought her mandate in just under a year while Sunak was about a year and a half.
Obviously, unless forced by the timetable or other circumstances (Sunak), no Prime Minister is going to go to the country until they have to or unless the political winds look favourable and as Theresa May aptly demonstrated, they may look favourable at the start of the campaign but that doesn't mean they'll end looking so favourable.
As for Boris Johnson, he inherited a dire polling situation forthe Conservatives but that position improved steadily and inexorably during the latter part of 2019 allowing him to choose a December election safe in the knowledge he would win.
Brown had a brief "honeymoon" where he might have won an election but Osborne's famous speech at the Conservative Conference ended that. Could any new PM enjoy a honeymoon and be tempted to take advantage? I can't see it.
I know all this - my point was the constant 'general election now' crap from non Tories.
I don't think I engaged in it myself, but it's a bit rich for Tories to complain. They did the same when Brown took over from Blair. It's just one of those bits of noise that partisans always throw around.
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
On Greater Manchester: clearly Manchester itself is doing well. But it's not at the expense of all the other towns: Altrincham is doing very well indeed, Stockport is on the up and despite perhaps a more downbeat retail offer than it was in the 80s is doing rather better than ever, Bury is doing all right. Manchester is not sucking the life out of those places. Wigan is not thriving, but - and I'd invite e.g. @dixiedean 's view here - seems to be doing no worse than at any time in the last 30 years. Ditto Tameside. But Rochdale (civic motto: "it could be worse, look at Oldham") and Oldham are awful and Bolton has declined massively in my lifetime.
Every day, when I wake up, I thank the Lord I don't live in Oldham.
I don't think this is cities sucking the life out of towns. I think this is towns thriving or failing for reasons of their own.
Grew up in Rochdale, went to college in Oldham. The problem is the disconnection caused by the hills - they are both enclosed and cut off. Ironically the SELNEC plan would have stuck new roads in which would have helped, as would have the new rail network plugged into the Picc-Vic tunnel.
None of that happened. Rochdale was always mad, with Pennine villages described officially as "townships". And now endless new houses being built on flood plains with no new roads or shops or facilities. Madness, sadly not on stilts.
The interesting aspect of Starmers refusal to resign is this completely screws Burnham .
It’s forcing an earlier challenge .
Sky reporting that it could be as early as today that Burnham will announce the seat he will stand in
Starmer is forcing the hand of those who don’t want Burnham . They either put up or shut up. If someone triggers a leadership challenge now then there’s no time for Burnham to get back into the Commons .
'Senior minister Darren Jones suggests any return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham would be "fantasy politics", telling the BBC conversations about "strategy" should happen "internally - as opposed to in public" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1e2n923v1lt
Oooh. Skyr wants Wes?
Yes and no.
He absolutely doesn't want Andy Burnham who he thinks is putting ego over the greater good.
For once I agree with Skyr. Burnham’s desperate careerism is an ugly spectacle
But then Starmer is guilty of the same, if not worse, as he’s PM
Could say same for Streeting, and his machinations.
Labour's problem is with WWC voters in north. The urban yuppies will return out of fear of the fascistos.
That's why Labour have to go for Burnham. Can you imagine how Wes will go down in County Durham or Nottinghamshire?
Burnham would be a gift to Reform and the Greens. His naked careerism and sense of entitlement is an open goal.
He’s a northern version of Starmer.
Far left Labour MP on GMB demanding Labour lurches to the left to counter the Greens and win back votes from them and Reform
Reform voters in red wall are social conservatives but fiscal liberals.
I would be really interested to learn a lot more about why Manchester is apparently growing better than most of the rest of the country, what is driving that and whether policies introduced by Burnham have contributed to it. If they have are these policies capable of being scaled for the rest of the UK?
Indeed. Take something that works and apply it elsewhere. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I don’t know why, I’d be interested too. But it does seem a little odd that given the growth and alleged great feeling in the city and region Labour got a battering from left and right.
There is also much skepticism surrounding “Manchesterism”, with suggestions it has merely sucked in economic energy from nearby smaller towns
I don’t know who is right. I’d like the skeptics to be wrong. It’s nice to think SOMEWHERE in the UK is thriving
The city/town thing is interesting, and highlights one of the sad tradeoffs we have to make.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
Having grown up in Rochdale I can confirm it was no different in the 80s as it is today - a satellite town of Manchester. Indeed GM has the problem of too many of these satellite towns too close to Manchester (and remember that "Manchester" is Manchester/Salford/Trafford).
We're also in the new world of having high streets die as big chains struggle and property is left to rot by big capital.
Rochdale is a prime example. Two indoor malls - one half empty, the other newer one abandoned), a main shopping street largely shuttered, and a new outdoor smaller mall. Literally not enough shops to fill the space. So I would CPI both indoor malls, flatten the older one and transfer shops into the newer one. Redevelop the site of the 70s one. CPI most of the shuttered shops on Yorkshire Street and convert them into mixed use retail / residential. And open enterprise arcades where small retail outlets can have a shop space for peppercorn rent as Stockton on Tees have done so successfully.
The model is there, you just need politicians with imagination to go at it.
"Revive the high streets" has been a Canute like policy of government for a couple of decades. Towns need people living in them far more than they need another scheme to subsidise retail.
And that is what I am suggesting. Get people living in the centres. As Manchester has done.
Comments
I find it deeply patronising that she is ruled out because she is said to be "physically unfit". Unlike Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage - political titans blessed with the physical prowess of Jabba the Hutt.
But it's all part of the theatre.
If it has got worse, then that explains her pale and drawn appearance, and lacklustre performance as a minister. She’s basically invisible
Sympathies to Yvette, if so
We have two choices - driest, tightest gov't (Benefit cuts, pension freezes, pension age to 75, insurance based healthcare system and so on) or join the Euro. Since Nige is riding high, the Eurozone won't take us with a seemingly imminent Reform Gov't coming in so it's going to have to be proper massive cuts (Tax rises will just hit the economy even more). Neither Labour nor Reform is likely going to cut properly so we're fucked.
Meanwhile the new Oxford to Cambridge line is built and open, but is carrying no passenger trains at all, because the operator won't run them with driver and guard and the union won't run them with just a driver. So the intermediate stations sit, empty and unused.
If you want to fund investment with borrowing that's fine, but I think you still need to cut spending and/or raise taxes so that you're not also borrowing for current spending and to pay debt interest at the same time.
There's a pretty convincing argument that big cities are more productive than small towns. More chances to make new connections, spark off new ideas. If you are young, they're also just more fun. It's fun to meet lots of new contemporaries, rather than the same thirty you went to school with. That doesn't have to be another ring of building on the fringe, it could just be improving the transport links.
(See https://tomforth.co.uk/birminghamisasmallcity/ for a geeky, not particularly lefty, exploration of this.)
Manchester has intentionally grown- more trams, bigger universities, more media. It was doing that before Mayor Andy and I trust it will do so after him. And that's worked. It probably has sucked energy out of the surrounding towns- their role has changed from hubs in their own right into subsiduary parts of GM. But that's what always happens- Romford has changed from a first town outside London into an agreeable outer suburb, and that's traumatic for people who have deeper roots here than I do. And the overall effect is to leave everyone better off.
Or take the northern town I have most experience of- Mirfield. Historically, it had local industries like textiles and boatyards. They've largely gone, and it's a quirky place to live with a monastery and waterfront and easyish access to Leeds. That's a process that's been happening for decades.
So what do we want? Keep economic activity scattered in towns, even if it makes us all less rich? Or accept that cities generate prosperity better, and use that money to make it easier for towns to function as suburbs? How you balance those depends quite a lot on how prosperous you are yourself. But denying the choice is one of the bits of denial that we've largely indulged in for too long.
Yes - its usually the sample!
The key to all of this is hope. Give people optimism about the future and we can turn this around. And the only way to do that is to invest money into the places where we live.
I learnt everything I know about the antiques trade from John Grant.
"Oh look, there is life up North!"
As @DavidL pointed out yesterday, 1pp on gilt rates costs £30bn per year over time.
The solutions are either dramatic cuts in spending, narrowing the scope of government significantly, or accepting several years of devaluation and inflation.
Because
1. You implied that I’m a fool being duped, when I’m not. These cups are not fake, they are the real thing, they ARE that cheap, they are exactly that old (we know the precise patterns used by English porcelain manufacturers in specific years)
So, you were totally wrong. Admit it
Also
2. You waded in on a subject about which you know nothing - and, worse, you did it with a bogus air of authority. I find this personally and utterly objectionable
Just to be clear, you are suggesting that people on PB should apologise for having a "bogus air of authority"? Have you thought this through?
The quotes are fecked but I like to think we are his carers. I worry about that gigantic brain being left on its own thinking thoughts.
The Labour party might well point to the increasing indebtedness of the Conservative years, but might reasonably ask themselves when during those years they were calling for moderation of public spending.
And not keeping the markets happy will result in the electorate being very very unhappy, as tin-pot economies the world over have demonstrated time and time again.
We're also in the new world of having high streets die as big chains struggle and property is left to rot by big capital.
Rochdale is a prime example. Two indoor malls - one half empty, the other newer one abandoned), a main shopping street largely shuttered, and a new outdoor smaller mall. Literally not enough shops to fill the space. So I would CPI both indoor malls, flatten the older one and transfer shops into the newer one. Redevelop the site of the 70s one. CPI most of the shuttered shops on Yorkshire Street and convert them into mixed use retail / residential. And open enterprise arcades where small retail outlets can have a shop space for peppercorn rent as Stockton on Tees have done so successfully.
The model is there, you just need politicians with imagination to go at it.
Some of these Labour resignations and calls for Starmer to resign seem to ignore this and think a new leader will find a pile of money for their pet projects.
I’m beginning to think Starmer should hang on as the alternatives are starting to look even worse .
Whether these MPs like it or not you can’t sustain a loss in confidence from the markets.
I suspect I will not hear much from them.
"Come and have a go..."
Should add Manchester used to, and maybe still does haven't checked, have the largest Chinese community in Europe.
ETA: I see I was not alone!
One idea of why is set out here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/23/transport-west-yorkshire-tram-network-delayed-leeds-bradford
Basically a combination of excessive concentration of political power in London, and central government starving the regions of investment.
Solving that isn't particularly complicated, but it would require a lot of political will, and the results, while potentially game changing for the economy, would take years to show through.
As things stand, there are other things (nice views from our windows, enough sovereignty to give us the patriotic horn, early retirement, high house prices) that enough people want more.
This might change of course over the next hour !
Accuses the plotters of destabilising the government and costing the country
States the party has a process
He's clinging to process, again.
I think there are lots of ways that a future Green government, or a new Labour PM determined to spend more, can increase spending, provided that they are able to provide the bond market with a halfway plausible plan for being able to pay it back in the future. It's not a very high bar. But there are a lot of people around determined not to meet it, determined not to learn the lesson of the Truss Calamity.
https://x.com/peterrhague/status/2054116479595880689
Every day, when I wake up, I thank the Lord I don't live in Oldham.
I don't think this is cities sucking the life out of towns. I think this is towns thriving or failing for reasons of their own.
John Major waited about as long as he could as did Gordon Brown. May sought her mandate in just under a year while Sunak was about a year and a half.
Obviously, unless forced by the timetable or other circumstances (Sunak), no Prime Minister is going to go to the country until they have to or unless the political winds look favourable and as Theresa May aptly demonstrated, they may look favourable at the start of the campaign but that doesn't mean they'll end looking so favourable.
As for Boris Johnson, he inherited a dire polling situation forthe Conservatives but that position improved steadily and inexorably during the latter part of 2019 allowing him to choose a December election safe in the knowledge he would win.
Brown had a brief "honeymoon" where he might have won an election but Osborne's famous speech at the Conservative Conference ended that. Could any new PM enjoy a honeymoon and be tempted to take advantage? I can't see it.
Health Secretary has told him he'll stand if a contest is declared. And West now has the numbers.
I get the stand and fight bit. But he has to show authority which means sacking the rebels.
The majority of the country will never be happy until they are given the moon on a stick for free.
Towns need people living in them far more than they need another scheme to subsidise retail.
This is for the people who do the work.
The nurses doing double shifts. The teachers who stay late. The plumbers, the carers, the small builders, the people running shops. The graduates trying to build a life. The founders who chose to build something here.
Britain has stopped being a country that backs them.
Over 40 years of political choices Britain has built an economy where owning things pays better than building them.
Holding scarce land. Holding protected market positions. Holding the right credentials. Holding the right postcode. Gaming process. Capturing public money meant for someone else.
These have become safer routes to reward than working, investing, teaching, caring, manufacturing or taking productive risk.
This isn't a conspiracy. It's the predictable result of a state that has lost the ability to build, decide, enforce and shape markets in the public interest.
The planning system rations land. The energy system rations power. Capital fails to scale British firms. Regulation protects incumbents and crushes challengers. Tax falls hard on work and lightly on position.
Government compensates people for the costs this creates. But in rationed markets, that compensation is often captured by the same scarcity that made it necessary. Public money flows through broken systems and strengthens the very interests that broke them.
Fiscal space shrinks. The state becomes more cautious, less capable, more dependent on the processes that created the failure. The loop tightens.
An Honest Day is a new economic settlement for Britain. The shift required is from a distributive state to a capable one. Support people now. Reform the scarcity that makes support necessary. Reward action, not position.
Wes should run on this
It’s forcing an earlier challenge .
Can't help but think that if they don't do it properly, he'll sue them for constructive or unfair dismissal...
There is really no reason why modern Leeds should not be able to do something similar. Except - of course - it would reduce London's power over the regions.
None of them seem to have any actual policy ideas that the current government is not implementing. Am I missing some grand political strategy any of them have signed up to?
At least you knew what Corbyn / MacDonnell stood for.
It was me on here that misconstrued. Mind you it is hideous. Utterly hideous
None of that happened. Rochdale was always mad, with Pennine villages described officially as "townships". And now endless new houses being built on flood plains with no new roads or shops or facilities. Madness, sadly not on stilts.
Communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh is first minister to leave government after heavy election losses
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/12/darren-jones-keir-starmer-future-labour-leader