Far-right influencer EDobbin went to Tommy Robinson’s march and filmed himself harassing a 15-year-old girl in front of her mum. Even after they told him her age and walked away, he followed her, asking for her “details” and said she should have a “warning sign” on her.
Presumably he's trying to create his personal "circular economy".
When I lived opposite St Katherine’s Dock in Tower Hill, the local “Death to Starbucks and coffee chains”* independent coffee shop was owned by the chap who owned the local Starbucks franchise.
I admired his pragmatic approach.
*complete with petitions on the local events board.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Yes, as a Tory I want Burnham to win the by election. Burnham polls best in the North, Wales and Midlands and would take votes from Reform and the Greens. However he polls worst in the South so would not take many votes from the Tories and would enable Kemi to put clear blue low tax, controlled spending water with a high tax, high spend Burnham led Labour
Then you’re not a true patriot and you’re certainly not right wing. If Reform wins here that could actually be the end of Labour - forever. Given what damage they’ve done to the country surely that is overwhelmingly desirable? Yes it might mean the end of your party too, but who cares. It’s just a party
It’s the country that matters. Britain. The British people. Ending Labour would be brilliant for GREAT BRITAIN
I’m afraid this is final proof that in the end you’re not a patriot and you’re not even that political. You support the Tory party out of sheer tribalism. Like a mindless oaf supporting Millwall
I am a Tory, not hard right. If the Tory party didn’t exist I would be a swing voter between LD and Reform, I wouldn’t join Reform.
I don’t especially want to see the end of Labour either, they are certainly better than the Polanski Greens.
Reform would destroy the UK and could end the Union, the Greens would destroy the economy and end the monarchy.
So on the one hand you firmly believe Reform would “destroy the UK” but on the other you might vote for them at a push
Tell me, how do you reckon they would “destroy the UK”?
I remember talking to an SNP MSP who was beside himself with joy at the prospect of Boris becoming PM. In the event his joy proved misplaced.
But Farage is a different prospect. He's really an English nationalist and, even if he isn't, comes across like one. Reform has a much lower ceiling of support in Scotland, and there's a reason for that. He is a threat to the union. It's pretty obvious to anyone in Scotland who's the least politically sensitive.
Maybe, but I expect Scotland to be put under martial law if Reform win (which should please @HYUFD, so I don't know why he's kvetching about Farage). Probably curfews as well. They won't be getting any indyref2, lol
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed. If you’re e.g. a doctor or a pilot, you’re allowed to keep working to avoid losing your licence.
I took a 40% pay cut on election and didn't spend significant time on compensating work - nor did anyone else that I knew, except for a GP who kept up his practice. Basically you stand for election becausew you want to do it, not because it's a chance to earn a lot of money. There is a problem in professions where 5+ years' break leads to difficulties in getting back in.
An Albanian murderer is back in the UK despite having been booted out more than a decade ago, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Afrim Sinani, 54, was seen prowling a bustling high street last week and has been traced to a suburban address. His new neighbours are probably oblivious to his vicious past. Sinani shot a man in a revenge killing and was jailed for 20 years in 1996. But he escaped and, with his wife, entered the UK illegally on a lorry in 2000.
He lived in Ilford, Essex, with his wife and three children before he was tracked down and extradited to Albania in 2010. Incredibly, he is now back in the UK, living with his family in a council-owned home in north east London,
Using the fake name of Afrim Pulaj, Sinani had been granted asylum and a British passport after lying about being a Kosovan refugee. He, his wife and three children enjoyed £120,000 in benefits until 2010. Sinani's family were allowed to remain in the UK after he was deported.
People smugglers are directing migrants to pay for illegal Channel crossings using a network of UK-registered businesses, a BBC investigation has found. We secretly filmed staff at a shop in south-east London telling an undercover researcher that nearly £3,000 in cash could be deposited with them and sent to a smuggler in France.
All those shops everybody knows are dodgy are like well dodgy.....Its the fact these dodgy shops are even starting to have a franchise model is mind blowing that the authorities have totally lost control of the situation.
Why are the BBC finding all this out yet Immigration/the Police don't seem able to?
Remember when Sir Keir "gang smasher" Starmer was gonna "smash the gangs"? How's that going? The gangs are literally operating in phone shops up and down the country. If you asked anyone in Britain where dodgy stuff might be going on, they would say "check all the dodgy phone and vape shops. And the cake shops". Et voila
Either Starmer, the Labour government, and all who work for them are the most incompetent circus in the history of clown shows, OR they lied. They can't be bothered to smash the gangs, they don't mind people coming over in boats
It's one or t'other
It's neither as anyone following the news would know. For instance, it was recently reported an Albanian people-smuggling gang has been broken up, and that (separately) boats are now launching from Belgium rather than France. And we only have small boats because we started checking lorries.
It's the same as drugs. Block one route and others pop up. President Macron was right – it's the pull factor; Britain is the best country in the world so people pay thousands to come here, so entrepreneurial ne'er-do-wells are drawn to the unofficial travel agency sector.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Yes, as a Tory I want Burnham to win the by election. Burnham polls best in the North, Wales and Midlands and would take votes from Reform and the Greens. However he polls worst in the South so would not take many votes from the Tories and would enable Kemi to put clear blue low tax, controlled spending water with a high tax, high spend Burnham led Labour
Then you’re not a true patriot and you’re certainly not right wing. If Reform wins here that could actually be the end of Labour - forever. Given what damage they’ve done to the country surely that is overwhelmingly desirable? Yes it might mean the end of your party too, but who cares. It’s just a party
It’s the country that matters. Britain. The British people. Ending Labour would be brilliant for GREAT BRITAIN
I’m afraid this is final proof that in the end you’re not a patriot and you’re not even that political. You support the Tory party out of sheer tribalism. Like a mindless oaf supporting Millwall
I am a Tory, not hard right. If the Tory party didn’t exist I would be a swing voter between LD and Reform, I wouldn’t join Reform.
I don’t especially want to see the end of Labour either, they are certainly better than the Polanski Greens.
Reform would destroy the UK and could end the Union, the Greens would destroy the economy and end the monarchy.
So on the one hand you firmly believe Reform would “destroy the UK” but on the other you might vote for them at a push
Tell me, how do you reckon they would “destroy the UK”?
I remember talking to an SNP MSP who was beside himself with joy at the prospect of Boris becoming PM. In the event his joy proved misplaced.
But Farage is a different prospect. He's really an English nationalist and, even if he isn't, comes across like one. Reform has a much lower ceiling of support in Scotland, and there's a reason for that. He is a threat to the union. It's pretty obvious to anyone in Scotland who's the least politically sensitive.
Maybe, but I expect Scotland to be put under martial law if Reform win (which should please @HYUFD, so I don't know why he's kvetching about Farage). Probably curfews as well. They won't be getting any indyref2, lol
Must corner the market on spare parts for Covenanter tanks, then.
That's an absolutely remarkable poll for Farage and Co, given that it ALSO features Restore, on 3%. Despite that splittage, Reform are TWELVE points ahead of the uniparties
Also rather bad news for Burnham. Suggests Reform are surging again, at exactly the wrong time
This is an interesting article from a couple of days ago about Burnham's prospects in the by-election. Seem to be a lot of people who like Burnham but intend to vote Reform.
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
That's an absolutely remarkable poll for Farage and Co, given that it ALSO features Restore, on 3%. Despite that splittage, Reform are TWELVE points ahead of the uniparties
Also rather bad news for Burnham. Suggests Reform are surging again, at exactly the wrong time
Not sure it's a surge, just a reflection of all the good publicity after the locals.
That's an absolutely remarkable poll for Farage and Co, given that it ALSO features Restore, on 3%. Despite that splittage, Reform are TWELVE points ahead of the uniparties
Also rather bad news for Burnham. Suggests Reform are surging again, at exactly the wrong time
Not sure it's a surge, just a reflection of all the good publicity after the locals.
Three points is outside the MoE and this has been seen in other polls. Yes it is a surge, the fact it comes from the local elex is neither here nor there (you're probably right, but it's not relevant to the point)
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed. If you’re e.g. a doctor or a pilot, you’re allowed to keep working to avoid losing your licence.
I took a 40% pay cut on election and didn't spend significant time on compensating work - nor did anyone else that I knew, except for a GP who kept up his practice. Basically you stand for election becausew you want to do it, not because it's a chance to earn a lot of money. There is a problem in professions where 5+ years' break leads to difficulties in getting back in.
Agreed, I think it’s important that an MP dedicates themselves to the job, but also that they don’t screw up their entire career to do so, which acts as a soft barrier to entry.
So pay perhaps £150k salary but limit external work to people like the GP or pilot, not (for an obvious example) Farage who appears to be earning in the high six figures from media work, including work overseas on the US media circuit.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Yes, as a Tory I want Burnham to win the by election. Burnham polls best in the North, Wales and Midlands and would take votes from Reform and the Greens. However he polls worst in the South so would not take many votes from the Tories and would enable Kemi to put clear blue low tax, controlled spending water with a high tax, high spend Burnham led Labour
Then you’re not a true patriot and you’re certainly not right wing. If Reform wins here that could actually be the end of Labour - forever. Given what damage they’ve done to the country surely that is overwhelmingly desirable? Yes it might mean the end of your party too, but who cares. It’s just a party
It’s the country that matters. Britain. The British people. Ending Labour would be brilliant for GREAT BRITAIN
I’m afraid this is final proof that in the end you’re not a patriot and you’re not even that political. You support the Tory party out of sheer tribalism. Like a mindless oaf supporting Millwall
I am a Tory, not hard right. If the Tory party didn’t exist I would be a swing voter between LD and Reform, I wouldn’t join Reform.
I don’t especially want to see the end of Labour either, they are certainly better than the Polanski Greens.
Reform would destroy the UK and could end the Union, the Greens would destroy the economy and end the monarchy.
So on the one hand you firmly believe Reform would “destroy the UK” but on the other you might vote for them at a push
Tell me, how do you reckon they would “destroy the UK”?
I remember talking to an SNP MSP who was beside himself with joy at the prospect of Boris becoming PM. In the event his joy proved misplaced.
But Farage is a different prospect. He's really an English nationalist and, even if he isn't, comes across like one. Reform has a much lower ceiling of support in Scotland, and there's a reason for that. He is a threat to the union. It's pretty obvious to anyone in Scotland who's the least politically sensitive.
Maybe, but I expect Scotland to be put under martial law if Reform win (which should please @HYUFD, so I don't know why he's kvetching about Farage). Probably curfews as well. They won't be getting any indyref2, lol
Well, all very amusing, no doubt. But dismembering the world's most successful multi-national state for the sake of a few Faragist LOLs seems a bit steep to me.
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed.
I don't know when it stopped being a thing, but all ministers assets into blind trust. Then we don't get things like Big Ange stamp duty issues or Rachel Reeves not having a licence to rent out a home, as proper legal tax advice will be being implemented and if they f##k up its nothing to do with the minister..
Big Ange’s stamp duty issues were due to a trust for her disabled son, so would putting her assets into a blind trust have helped?
Possibly only if she was not a trustee, but purely a beneficiary of the blind trust, but then she would no longer have been a trustee of the vulnerable person trust setup to hold her son’s assets, which seems counter productive?
This is an interesting article from a couple of days ago about Burnham's prospects in the by-election. Seem to be a lot of people who like Burnham but intend to vote Reform.
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed.
I don't know when it stopped being a thing, but all ministers assets into blind trust. Then we don't get things like Big Ange stamp duty issues or Rachel Reeves not having a licence to rent out a home, as proper legal tax advice will be being implemented and if they f##k up its nothing to do with the minister..
Big Ange’s stamp duty issues were due to a trust for her disabled son, so would putting her assets into a blind trust have helped?
Possibly only if she was not a trustee, but purely a beneficiary of the blind trust, but then she would no longer have been a trustee of the vulnerable person trust setup to hold her son’s assets, which seems counter productive?
If all her assets were being managed by the blind trust yes, because it was her personally that started to organise all the buying and selling that was going on. And she got into trouble because she ignored the lawyers advice to go and get specalist tax advice, instead just ploughing on her own (what really f##ked her was she lied about what the lawyers had said to her, there was a certain amount of sympathy that this was complex situation).
If the blind trust had messed up this complex situation she would have been fine as she wouldn't have been responsible for all these financial goings on. She could have said with all honesty that she wanted to move and the blind trust had organised it all.
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
Why vote for them?
NOTA.
(Apart from the new kids: Reform and the Greens. Hence the stagnation.)
This is an interesting article from a couple of days ago about Burnham's prospects in the by-election. Seem to be a lot of people who like Burnham but intend to vote Reform.
And everyone has seen Burnham jogging, which makes faking it for a photo opportunity a bit odd.
If the voters have reached the stage of thinking that the problem is at least as much Labour as it is Starmer, then Burnham could get buried here.
That's very interesting, thanks
Sound a bit grim for Burnham. My sense of Makerfield, a constituency I know well by googling it a couple of hours ago for 3 minutes, is that the by-election IS becoming a chance to pass sentence on Labour and Starmer, and that Burnham's affability might not count for much against the hatred now invoked by the mere word "Labour"
He could not just lose, he could lose rather badly
HOWEVER it's early doors and Farage could pick some insane candidate and events, dear boy, etc
That's an absolutely remarkable poll for Farage and Co, given that it ALSO features Restore, on 3%. Despite that splittage, Reform are TWELVE points ahead of the uniparties
Also rather bad news for Burnham. Suggests Reform are surging again, at exactly the wrong time
Not sure it's a surge, just a reflection of all the good publicity after the locals.
Three points is outside the MoE and this has been seen in other polls. Yes it is a surge, the fact it comes from the local elex is neither here nor there (you're probably right, but it's not relevant to the point)
If it's not a surge because of policies etc, then it may not affect people's willingness to vote for the next prime minister at a by-election
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed. If you’re e.g. a doctor or a pilot, you’re allowed to keep working to avoid losing your licence.
I took a 40% pay cut on election and didn't spend significant time on compensating work - nor did anyone else that I knew, except for a GP who kept up his practice. Basically you stand for election becausew you want to do it, not because it's a chance to earn a lot of money. There is a problem in professions where 5+ years' break leads to difficulties in getting back in.
Agreed, I think it’s important that an MP dedicates themselves to the job, but also that they don’t screw up their entire career to do so, which acts as a soft barrier to entry.
So pay perhaps £150k salary but limit external work to people like the GP or pilot, not (for an obvious example) Farage who appears to be earning in the high six figures from media work, including work overseas on the US media circuit.
MPs are allowed to moonlight as government ministers, which is a direct conflict of interest and probably takes up a lot more time than the odd bit of highly remunerative media work. So I woukd call banning MPs from doing other jobs "hypocrisy".
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Quite funny and transparent.
You want the Tories to split the Reform vote so Burnham safely gets home, so he can then perform his Jiu-Jitsu moves to get us locked in with the EU.
I'd vote Reform in this by election.
I think the UK should move back towards the EU. I don't know whether Burnham will deliver that any more or less quickly than Starmer or Streeting or Rayner or whoever else wants to be Labour leader. Recent events suggest he'll do so less quickly than Streeting, but probably around the same speed as Starmer...? I don't vote for Labour and I support a more pro-EU party. I don't want Reform to win because they are terrible people who want to import Trump-ism to the UK.
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
Why vote for them?
More housing nationally, but massively opposed to any specific development proposal.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Quite funny and transparent.
You want the Tories to split the Reform vote so Burnham safely gets home, so he can then perform his Jiu-Jitsu moves to get us locked in with the EU.
I'd vote Reform in this by election.
I think the UK should move back towards the EU. I don't know whether Burnham will deliver that any more or less quickly than Starmer or Streeting or Rayner or whoever else wants to be Labour leader. Recent events suggest he'll do so less quickly than Streeting, but probably around the same speed as Starmer...? I don't vote for Labour and I support a more pro-EU party. I don't want Reform to win because they are terrible people who want to import Trump-ism to the UK.
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
If Reform win, the question becomes does the Tory party have any purpose nowadays
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
No joke. This poll, if it eventuated at a GE, would see Labour down to 25 MPs and in SIXTH place. Roughly where Mebyon Kernow are now. On the upside, it would give them a real space to rebuild
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
Why vote for them?
The point of the LibDems has always been to provide Labour with a potential coalition partner capable of delivering seats in the leafy parts.
Sadly, for them, Blair's overwhelming success prevented them from providing succour 1997-2005, and in 2010 circumstances (G. Brown) forced them into bed with Dave 'n' George. They have yet to fulfil their manifold destiny.
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
Angela Rayner messed up because she was trying to do the right thing for her son . As opposed to the lying grifter Farage who was taking money to help his Crypto billionaire friend by changing Reform policy .
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
No joke. This poll, if it eventuated at a GE, would see Labour down to 25 MPs and in SIXTH place. Roughly where Mebyon Kernow are now. On the upside, it would give them a real space to rebuild
I wonder how low Labour can go in the polls. The current situation is almost designed for them to become as unpopular as possible.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Quite funny and transparent.
You want the Tories to split the Reform vote so Burnham safely gets home, so he can then perform his Jiu-Jitsu moves to get us locked in with the EU.
I'd vote Reform in this by election.
I think the UK should move back towards the EU. I don't know whether Burnham will deliver that any more or less quickly than Starmer or Streeting or Rayner or whoever else wants to be Labour leader. Recent events suggest he'll do so less quickly than Streeting, but probably around the same speed as Starmer...? I don't vote for Labour and I support a more pro-EU party. I don't want Reform to win because they are terrible people who want to import Trump-ism to the UK.
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
Bear in mind, Aberdeen South. A prospect of a Tory gain there.
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed. If you’re e.g. a doctor or a pilot, you’re allowed to keep working to avoid losing your licence.
I took a 40% pay cut on election and didn't spend significant time on compensating work - nor did anyone else that I knew, except for a GP who kept up his practice. Basically you stand for election becausew you want to do it, not because it's a chance to earn a lot of money. There is a problem in professions where 5+ years' break leads to difficulties in getting back in.
Agreed, I think it’s important that an MP dedicates themselves to the job, but also that they don’t screw up their entire career to do so, which acts as a soft barrier to entry.
So pay perhaps £150k salary but limit external work to people like the GP or pilot, not (for an obvious example) Farage who appears to be earning in the high six figures from media work, including work overseas on the US media circuit.
MPs are allowed to moonlight as government ministers, which is a direct conflict of interest and probably takes up a lot more time than the odd bit of highly remunerative media work. So I woukd call banning MPs from doing other jobs "hypocrisy".
I think the government jobs should come with a higher salary again, as well as a higher allowance for constituency staff to cover their MP caseload work.
But still no external sources of income, especially from media or speaking. They’re MPs, already paid to speak, don’t let them take money to speak and be beholden to their sponsors.
No joke. This poll, if it eventuated at a GE, would see Labour down to 25 MPs and in SIXTH place. Roughly where Mebyon Kernow are now. On the upside, it would give them a real space to rebuild
It would be deeply amusing to see Labour reduced to a five taxi party.
Almost worth enduring a Reform government with a crushing majority just for that spectacle.
Of course, nothing is forever, and in 2034 or whenever Reform might go the same way ...
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
"England was my amazing grace. I went to England, I got my voice," the first lady adds. "I got my independence, and then I was able to fight for myself. And now I can fight for as many young people as possible."
Something else she gained in the UK was a council flat in Southwark in central London, a home she still keeps today where her children live.
As a form of social housing, council homes are usually cheaper to rent than private accommodation and applicants have to meet certain criteria."
Now her kids live there, on a peppercorn rent. How nice for them to have a little pied a terre in a part of wealthy central London where 98% of Brits can only dream of living. And all of it subsidised by the British taxpayers who can't afford to live there
One thing Reform must do, when they reach office, is sort out the scandal of social housing, especially in central London
Angela Rayner messed up because she was trying to do the right thing for her son . As opposed to the lying grifter Farage who was taking money to help his Crypto billionaire friend by changing Reform policy .
No, she wanted to move to be near her boyfriend. Nothing wrong with that. But couldn't afford the cost of the place she wanted to buy, so there was some financial rearranging. Again nothing wrong so far. But because it was very complex situation the lawyers dealing with part of the process said you need to speak to specalist tax lawyers about this to ensure everything is above board. She didn't do so. But then when it all came out, she first tried the soft soap interview saying not fair, everybody is being a meany, then tried to throw the lawyers under the bus. And that is where it all went wrong, because the lawyers turned around and had the receipts to say, no you don't. The lying is what did for her.
Farage being a grifter. Well its a bit a like like finding out Russell Brand had a very dodgy past when it came to young ladies.
An Albanian murderer is back in the UK despite having been booted out more than a decade ago, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Afrim Sinani, 54, was seen prowling a bustling high street last week and has been traced to a suburban address. His new neighbours are probably oblivious to his vicious past. Sinani shot a man in a revenge killing and was jailed for 20 years in 1996. But he escaped and, with his wife, entered the UK illegally on a lorry in 2000.
He lived in Ilford, Essex, with his wife and three children before he was tracked down and extradited to Albania in 2010. Incredibly, he is now back in the UK, living with his family in a council-owned home in north east London,
Using the fake name of Afrim Pulaj, Sinani had been granted asylum and a British passport after lying about being a Kosovan refugee. He, his wife and three children enjoyed £120,000 in benefits until 2010. Sinani's family were allowed to remain in the UK after he was deported.
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
G&D showed that Reform were not an Irresistible Force, however.
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
GLA Holdings should simply put sell the stadium, the current situation of essentially state funding for West Ham United is ridiculous. It's up to West Ham's owners whether or not they want to buy it or not, but this sort of asset should not be on a council's books - if they don't want it they can pay rent to Mike Ashley or whoever buys it.
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed.
I don't know when it stopped being a thing, but all ministers assets into blind trust. Then we don't get things like Big Ange stamp duty issues or Rachel Reeves not having a licence to rent out a home, as proper legal tax advice will be being implemented and if they f##k up its nothing to do with the minister..
Big Ange’s stamp duty issues were due to a trust for her disabled son, so would putting her assets into a blind trust have helped?
Possibly only if she was not a trustee, but purely a beneficiary of the blind trust, but then she would no longer have been a trustee of the vulnerable person trust setup to hold her son’s assets, which seems counter productive?
If all her assets were being managed by the blind trust yes, because it was her personally that started to organise all the buying and selling that was going on. And she got into trouble because she ignored the lawyers advice to go and get specalist tax advice, instead just ploughing on her own (what really f##ked her was she lied about what the lawyers had said to her, there was a certain amount of sympathy that this was complex situation).
If the blind trust had messed up this complex situation she would have been fine as she wouldn't have been responsible for all these financial goings on. She could have said with all honesty that she wanted to move and the blind trust had organised it all.
HMRC has gradually stamped out all of the uses & abuses of trusts to avoid taxes over the years.
As I’ve said before, Ange screwed up but it was an entirely understandable screw up & it’s clear that she was unaware of the obligation to pay the higher rate of stamp duty. She could have avoided it entirely by simply waiting six months to buy a property, had she known.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Quite funny and transparent.
You want the Tories to split the Reform vote so Burnham safely gets home, so he can then perform his Jiu-Jitsu moves to get us locked in with the EU.
I'd vote Reform in this by election.
I think the UK should move back towards the EU. I don't know whether Burnham will deliver that any more or less quickly than Starmer or Streeting or Rayner or whoever else wants to be Labour leader. Recent events suggest he'll do so less quickly than Streeting, but probably around the same speed as Starmer...? I don't vote for Labour and I support a more pro-EU party. I don't want Reform to win because they are terrible people who want to import Trump-ism to the UK.
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
Bear in mind, Aberdeen South. A prospect of a Tory gain there.
Indeed. I nearly mentioned Aberdeen South. A Tory gain there while Reform lose in Makerfield would be a dream for Badenoch. "We can win, others can't."
I'm a LibDem. I've supported a "third party" for decades. It's tough. The Tories do not want to be permanently in the same situation of having to prove their relevance over and over again. They want to be back in the top two, where they are one of the two defaults.
If you want to donate to charity, do so. If you think MPs are paid too much (they are not). then say so.
MPs aren't overpaid ?!?
Best of luck making that argument in Makerfield.
True, but he’d be taking a pay cut to be an MP (but obviously not as a minister).
Personally I’d pay MPs more, but hold them to much higher standards; for example limiting outside work to the minimum required to maintain professional standing, no newspaper column or TV appearance fees allowed.
I don't know when it stopped being a thing, but all ministers assets into blind trust. Then we don't get things like Big Ange stamp duty issues or Rachel Reeves not having a licence to rent out a home, as proper legal tax advice will be being implemented and if they f##k up its nothing to do with the minister..
Big Ange’s stamp duty issues were due to a trust for her disabled son, so would putting her assets into a blind trust have helped?
Possibly only if she was not a trustee, but purely a beneficiary of the blind trust, but then she would no longer have been a trustee of the vulnerable person trust setup to hold her son’s assets, which seems counter productive?
If all her assets were being managed by the blind trust yes, because it was her personally that started to organise all the buying and selling that was going on. And she got into trouble because she ignored the lawyers advice to go and get specalist tax advice, instead just ploughing on her own (what really f##ked her was she lied about what the lawyers had said to her, there was a certain amount of sympathy that this was complex situation).
If the blind trust had messed up this complex situation she would have been fine as she wouldn't have been responsible for all these financial goings on. She could have said with all honesty that she wanted to move and the blind trust had organised it all.
HMRC has gradually stamped out all of the uses & abuses of trusts to avoid taxes over the years.
As I’ve said before, Ange screwed up but it was an entirely understandable screw up & it’s clear that she was unaware of the obligation to pay the higher rate of stamp duty. She could have avoided it entirely by simply waiting six months to buy a property, had she known.
I didn't say anything about the blind trust making things more tax efficient, that isn't why I am advocating it being done.
I am saying ministers should do this because then conflicts of interest and either attempts to do some financial engineering or fucks up aren't the responsibility of the minister. If the controllers of the blind trust had told her no extra tax to pay, she wouldn't have had a problem, she could have said with all honesty, I told the blind trust that I wished to move, they arranged it all, it appears they made a mistake. And that would have been the end of it.
But that is a secondary distraction to the main thrust of if we pay ministers more what do we expect in return. The Singapore model is very much anything seen as remotely shifty you are done done. One step towards removing tempation / or appearance of conflict of interest is to put assets into blind trusts.
Super-rich financier tries to sue the papers to make them not talk about his sexual misconduct. He loses. This is a good story, a well-written piece by the FT.
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
GLA Holdings should simply put sell the stadium, the current situation of essentially state funding for West Ham United is ridiculous. It's up to West Ham's owners whether or not they want to buy it or not, but this sort of asset should not be on a council's books - if they don't want it they can pay rent to Mike Ashley or whoever buys it.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its forecast for the UK's growth this year, but warned the Iran war and "domestic uncertainty" could hit the economy.
The growth estimate has been upgraded to 1% from 0.8% for 2026 by the influential body, which said last month that the UK would be hit hardest by the Iran war among the world's advanced economies.
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
Why vote for them?
The point of the LibDems has always been to provide Labour with a potential coalition partner capable of delivering seats in the leafy parts.
Sadly, for them, Blair's overwhelming success prevented them from providing succour 1997-2005, and in 2010 circumstances (G. Brown) forced them into bed with Dave 'n' George. They have yet to fulfil their manifold destiny.
This, from Twitter, seems to be a fair assessment
‘ Can't remember who it was said that the best way to understand the Lib Dems is that they are like the fake opposition parties in the Eastern Bloc, who didn’t actually disagree with the regime in any significant way but were allowed to exist to maintain the appearance of pluralism.’
No matter what the chaos, the Lib Dems never seem to be able to benefit on a national vote share level.
Is it surprising? I cannot think of a single, unique Lib Dem policy, and Davey is an embarrassing doofus. Their one USP was "more pro EU than the others, but in a vague way" and now even that has been stolen by the more suicidal wing of the Labour Party
Why vote for them?
More housing nationally, but massively opposed to any specific development proposal.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
GLA Holdings should simply put sell the stadium, the current situation of essentially state funding for West Ham United is ridiculous. It's up to West Ham's owners whether or not they want to buy it or not, but this sort of asset should not be on a council's books - if they don't want it they can pay rent to Mike Ashley or whoever buys it.
IIRC the stadium also gets used for national athletics meetings in the summer, so it’s a little more complicated.
Presumably the WHFC lease price is related to which league they play, but there’s no reason for taxpayers to be on the hook. Are taxpayers actually writing a £2.5m cheque, or is it that the income is £2.5m less?
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
What were Farages connections to Clacton ?
Putting that aside it’s a good attack line on Burnham .
London taxpayers may have to pay an extra £2.5m if West Ham are relegated from the Premier League this season, because of the club's lease agreement for London Stadium.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
An Albanian murderer is back in the UK despite having been booted out more than a decade ago, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Afrim Sinani, 54, was seen prowling a bustling high street last week and has been traced to a suburban address. His new neighbours are probably oblivious to his vicious past. Sinani shot a man in a revenge killing and was jailed for 20 years in 1996. But he escaped and, with his wife, entered the UK illegally on a lorry in 2000.
He lived in Ilford, Essex, with his wife and three children before he was tracked down and extradited to Albania in 2010. Incredibly, he is now back in the UK, living with his family in a council-owned home in north east London,
Using the fake name of Afrim Pulaj, Sinani had been granted asylum and a British passport after lying about being a Kosovan refugee. He, his wife and three children enjoyed £120,000 in benefits until 2010. Sinani's family were allowed to remain in the UK after he was deported.
Again the Mail know this, the authorities clueless.
If you want to know why Reform are 12% ahead, this is the sort of reason.
And if you want to know who the politicians responsible for government over this period were, half of them are the ex Tory failures in the Reform "cabinet".
Minor league stuff perhaps, but Labour have just confirmed they will continue to run a minority administration on Oxford City Council.
The Greens and Lib Dems together just about outnumber them (and are in coalition elsewhere in Oxfordshire), but the numbers are tight and there'll be unitary elections next year anyway, so they seem to have decided they can't be bothered. They may be right.
Was just chatting to a neighbour this morning who went to the UTK rally, he's Jewish so I was a bit surprised he'd be out on a day like that when the far left and far right hordes marching really only agree on one thing - their hatred of Jews. Anyway, he went with his wife and they said it was actually very chill, not may non white people but he said probably at least 5% of the crowd were black or brown. He met a few other Jewish people there too who were also a bit wary like he was but he said none of them received or saw any kind of abuse from the people who attended. According to him it felt safer to be in amongst them than it would have been in the other rally going on in London with the lefty mob.
Had a good conversation with him about it, he said didn't hide that he was Jewish and actively brought it up in conversations with people who didn't seem bothered. Lots of support for Israel overall he said that the most common minority people there were middle aged and older Jamaican men who very much identify as British, have lived here for 40+ years or were born here. Second place was Indian people who were generally pretty happy to be there waving flags.
The conversations he said were most common were about immigrants, especially more recent ones, not integrating into British culture and society at all and how the state has allowed them to choose that life rather than force them to adopt British values or go to a country which will tolerate that kind of culture. The second most common topic was welfare being paid to immigrants, asylum seekers and illegals - he said there is real anger about this one among everyone he spoke to, stories about illegal boat arrivals getting priority access to housing and healthcare was the topic that got most people very angry. Lots of anger at Labour but also at the Tories for presiding over it. Not a lot of hostility towards Kemi, most people either didn't know who she was or didn't believe that the Tories would win or if they won do anything differently to before.
Anyway, thought it was an interesting chat over our fence this morning while I was having my coffee on the patio.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
One concern is he isn't that tall* and with the kicking game such a big part of international rugby he might be vulnerable, but then they have picked Murley and Radwan instead, who are both shorter and just as erratic.
* he isn't a midget, but not great in the air, in the way Roebuck and Caluori are getting picked because they are brilliant in the air.
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
What were Farages connections to Clacton ?
Putting that aside it’s a good attack line on Burnham .
Hope the electoral commission is keeping track of the cost of all this.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Lawrence is well off his best at the moment. Ojomoh is back from injury and gave a superb 30 cameo against Newcastle on Saturday (an easy win that was at times as flat as a pancake, but when Ojomoh and Tom Carr-Smith came on it was as if the game had been sped up).
Arundell is sensationally quick - I can only assume its other aspects of his game that gets his left out.
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
What were Farages connections to Clacton ?
Putting that aside it’s a good attack line on Burnham .
Hope the electoral commission is keeping track of the cost of all this.
Or does that not start until the writ is moved?
It starts from when a candidate says they are the candidate.
When I looked at the rules on Friday you could easily abuse it in the early days before your candidate is known
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The madness is that I think he is not suited to Borthwick's chosen style of play. Stick Arundell outside a lightening set of backs at Bath or the midfield of Northampton Saints and he will score for fun. Ask him to chase 20 up and unders a match and he is not your number 1.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Lawrence is well off his best at the moment. Ojomoh is back from injury and gave a superb 30 cameo against Newcastle on Saturday (an easy win that was at times as flat as a pancake, but when Ojomoh and Tom Carr-Smith came on it was as if the game had been sped up).
Arundell is sensationally quick - I can only assume its other aspects of his game that gets his left out.
I always think Cokanasiga has been a bit hard done by to not even get a chance. After the injury he has never been quite the player he could have been and defensively he can be a bit iffy. But with 20 minutes to go, a fresh 6ft 4in beast coming off the bench and hitting the lines hard seems an attractive option to me.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Lawrence is well off his best at the moment. Ojomoh is back from injury and gave a superb 30 cameo against Newcastle on Saturday (an easy win that was at times as flat as a pancake, but when Ojomoh and Tom Carr-Smith came on it was as if the game had been sped up).
Arundell is sensationally quick - I can only assume its other aspects of his game that gets his left out.
I always think Cokanasiga has been a bit hard done by to not even get a chance. After the injury he has never been quite the player he could have been and defensively he can be a bit iffy. But with 20 minutes to go, a fresh 6ft 4in beast coming off the bench and hitting the lines hard seems an attractive option to me.
Joe is great but he suffers because he ISN'T Jonah Lomu. He was sound in the air on saturday (albeit in what felt like a preseason match) but would be out-competed by players that actually jump. And he is also not as quick as Arundell (mind few are). At Bath we rather like Will Muir.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The madness is that I think he is not suited to Borthwick's chosen style of play. Stick Arundell outside a lightening set of backs at Bath or the midfield of Northampton Saints and he will score for fun. Ask him to chase 20 up and unders a match and he is not your number 1.
I think the simple solution is Borthwick on your bike. The RFU twats who ban the selection of the player in France or who have committed to going to France can get stuffed to. We could have a back row of the Willis brothers and Zack Mercer, with the pack including the likes of Ribbans and Sinckler.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The madness is that I think he is not suited to Borthwick's chosen style of play. Stick Arundell outside a lightening set of backs at Bath or the midfield of Northampton Saints and he will score for fun. Ask him to chase 20 up and unders a match and he is not your number 1.
I think the simple solution is Borthwick on your bike. The RFU twats who ban the selection of the player in France or who have committed to going to France can get stuffed to. We could have a back row of the Willis brothers and Zack Mercer, with the pack including the likes of Ribbans and Sinckler.
I agree on Borthwick. Look at how Northampton play, or Bath at their best. Play like that.
Andy Burnham’s allies have accused Wes Streeting of trying to derail the mayor’s campaign for No 10 by reopening Labour’s Brexit battles and playing into the hands of Reform UK
His intervention prompted a furious response from Burnham’s supporters, who said it was a deliberate attempt to elevate Brexit as an issue in the Leave-voting seat of Makerfield, which the mayor of Greater Manchester must win to contest the party leadership
One Burnham ally said: “Wes’s only hope at becoming the next leader is for Andy to lose the by-election. [Streeting’s] comments … are counterproductive to Labour winning this by-election. It’s very transparent.”
An MP close to Burnham said it was a “a roll of the dice” by Streeting because “he can see the writing is on the wall”. A friend of Burnham said Streeting was “clearly trying to create a dividing line.”
Please please please let's not talk about Brexit until after I've won.
Andy Burnham must be the most disingenuous candidate out there.
It’s an unusual situation. Normally, a politician has to win over their party before winning over the public. This is the reverse.
The public really don’t like being told what to think by the politicians. Burnham, like Starmer, is tying himself in knots to say one thing nationally and the opposite locally.
I think I could probably be persuaded to vote Reform if I lived in Makerfield, it will be interesting to see how much of a paper candidate the Tories put up.
Nationally, Kemi will want to give the impression of fighting hard for every seat, but locally I suspect they lose their deposit and don’t care much if it keeps Burnham out of the Commons.
Could Burnham’s campaign for the top job be the biggest instant failure since Ron DeSantis?
It’s an interesting question what is in the Tories’ best long term interests. Remember there’s also the question of Reform winning the by-election, which is bad news for them, compared to Reform’s bubble continuing to slowly leak. With a Labour winner, the Tories would prefer Starmer staying to getting Burnham, but maybe they’d rather Burnham than Streeting? Whereas they wouldn’t mind Ange. Burnham also puts PR back on the agenda, which instinctively the Tories hate, yet might actually be in their best interests.
I think it's in the Tories' interests for Reform to win following a calamitous campaign by Burnham in which the Labour Party is clearly split.
Yes that was my thinking.
Tories got just shy of 11% at the last election, as Reform got more than 30%.
So the obvious move from the Tories is to run a paper candidate - assuming that Reform run a properly-vetted local candidate who doesn’t turn out to be one of Tommy Robinson’s football hooligan mates
Big G sees it the other way round, that from the country’s point of view Burnham’s better than Rayner or Streeting; that Reform are the Tories’ main rivals, so the Tories should campaign hard and split the right-of-centre vote.
I think both are valid, but given the seat demographics the Tory soft-pedal is the better option here.
I think its strategic against tactical and the strategic position supports @Big_G_NorthWales. Reform is a threat to the very existence of the Tory party. Labour isn't. A win for Reform here would throw Labour into total chaos and undermine the Labour government but it would make Reform, not the Tories, the threat to that government. The price for the Tories of a Reform win is too high a price to pay and they should do what they can to encourage their supporters not to back Reform.
I agree on strategy v tactics, but would save strategy for the general election, use the tactics for a by-election which is only happening as a vanity project for the Labour candidate.
If Reform win then they are going to have all the momentum and will be the next Government. Which I suspect would reduce the incentive for people to vote Tory, if you want a right wing party vote for the winner (Reform), if you don't vote Lib Dem / Labour as appropriate.
Whilst I think the Burnham factor should be taken into account, Reform really ought to win this by election. I don't think it does the Tories much harm if they do.
The best scenario for the Tories is if Labour goes left. They need the Lib Dems and their voters to be in a tricky position.
The Tories have lost most votes to Reform. Badenoch is campaigning nationally on the line that only the Tories can beat Labour. The better Reform do, the less Badenoch’s line works, the worse it is for the Tories. Labour winning a Labour seat doesn’t hurt the Tories; Reform winning is very bad for them.
Quite funny and transparent.
You want the Tories to split the Reform vote so Burnham safely gets home, so he can then perform his Jiu-Jitsu moves to get us locked in with the EU.
I'd vote Reform in this by election.
I think the UK should move back towards the EU. I don't know whether Burnham will deliver that any more or less quickly than Starmer or Streeting or Rayner or whoever else wants to be Labour leader. Recent events suggest he'll do so less quickly than Streeting, but probably around the same speed as Starmer...? I don't vote for Labour and I support a more pro-EU party. I don't want Reform to win because they are terrible people who want to import Trump-ism to the UK.
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
Bear in mind, Aberdeen South. A prospect of a Tory gain there.
Indeed. I nearly mentioned Aberdeen South. A Tory gain there while Reform lose in Makerfield would be a dream for Badenoch. "We can win, others can't."
I'm a LibDem. I've supported a "third party" for decades. It's tough. The Tories do not want to be permanently in the same situation of having to prove their relevance over and over again. They want to be back in the top two, where they are one of the two defaults.
The thing is, the main purpose of the Tories and Labour has for a long time simply been to beat the other lot. So if another party comes along that can do that better it's hardly surprising to see many of their voters switch.
Sure, it might mean the death of the Tories, but if defeating Labour is more important it will happen.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The madness is that I think he is not suited to Borthwick's chosen style of play. Stick Arundell outside a lightening set of backs at Bath or the midfield of Northampton Saints and he will score for fun. Ask him to chase 20 up and unders a match and he is not your number 1.
In my list of people I irrationally and viscerally hate, Steve Borthwick is third, just behind Gareth Southgate. But both are far behind Skyr
As I said on the last thread, Streeting has to decide what is the best he can achieve here for Wes Streeting. If he makes an enemy of Burnham he could find himself out in the cold. If he makes a friend he might be Chancellor. If I was advising him I would point out that the prospects of him beating Rayner or even Miliband without Burnham are poor to non existent so trying hard to become a part of team Burnham is probably the right way forward.
Wes was openly disloyal whilst Andy was officially loyal (don't snicker), no need to give him a job.
Former South Africa Under-20 centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg has been called up to the England training squad in the clearest indication yet that head coach Steve Borthwick intends to blood him this summer. Janse van Rensburg's inclusion comes at the expense of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who are left out.
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Arundell is a brilliant player. Yes, erratic, but he will improve
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The madness is that I think he is not suited to Borthwick's chosen style of play. Stick Arundell outside a lightening set of backs at Bath or the midfield of Northampton Saints and he will score for fun. Ask him to chase 20 up and unders a match and he is not your number 1.
I think the simple solution is Borthwick on your bike. The RFU twats who ban the selection of the player in France or who have committed to going to France can get stuffed to. We could have a back row of the Willis brothers and Zack Mercer, with the pack including the likes of Ribbans and Sinckler.
I agree on Borthwick. Look at how Northampton play, or Bath at their best. Play like that.
Some of the most exciting attacking talent in the world....now lads what I want you to do is one of two things, 1) kick it, lots, even if your don't need to, 2) be totally one dimensional, its scrum half to fly half to one of the centres running a straight line who will hit the defensive line, then repeat. I don't want it ever getting to the outside centre or the wingers unless you are really desperate.....and if they get stopped, kick it.
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
My take:
The Reform vote nationally (leading the polls) is made up of right-wing ex Tories, (mainly) WWC ex Labourites, and ex non-voters. In Macca it's the last 2 blocs who are key. Voters who used to be Labour or not voting and now support Reform. Where these break will determine the byelection. If they stick with Reform, Nigel wins. If enough of them are tempted back to Labour by Andy, he wins.
There's a hard and a soft component to this (non ex Tory) Reform support. The hard component is those for whom it really is all about Immigration. The soft component is people who are more just generally fed up about things and feel a bit forgotten by Westminster and by Labour in particular who they expected better of.
The hard 'anti-immigrant' votes belong to Reform (ignoring Restore so as not to clutter the argument). It's the soft part that is in play. This is an awful lot of voters and I'm expecting AB to win enough of them to romp home. It's an open goal imo. If he's as popular up there as everybody says he is I can't see him doing anything but finding the back of the net.
Opponents would prefer we stuck in the past - with Mayors denied the choice to raise revenue to invest locally, supporting growth, tourism & raising the economic potential of their areas.
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
What were Farages connections to Clacton ?
Putting that aside it’s a good attack line on Burnham .
Hope the electoral commission is keeping track of the cost of all this.
Or does that not start until the writ is moved?
It starts from when a candidate says they are the candidate.
When I looked at the rules on Friday you could easily abuse it in the early days before your candidate is known
Is that the case even after they move the writ? I.E. you can spend what you like until the day nominations close, provided you don't name the candidate until that date, and put the papers in at the last minute?
Meanwhile presumably if Labour pick AB they are already under spending limits as he's already bouncing about saying he intends to be the candidate.
That's actually quite funny, even if it is rather gaming the system.
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
My take:
The Reform vote nationally (and leading the polls) is made up of right-wing ex Tories, (mainly) WWC ex Labourites, and ex non-voters. In Macca it's the last 2 blocs who are key. Voters who used to be Labour or not voting and now support Reform. Where these break will determine the byelection. If they stick with Reform, Nigel wins. If enough of them are tempted back to Labour by Andy, he wins.
There's a hard and a soft component to this (non ex Tory) Reform support. The hard bit is those for whom it really is all about Immigration. The soft bit is people who are more just generally fed up about things and feel a bit forgotten by Westminster and by Labour in particular who they expected better of.
The hard 'anti-immigrant' votes belong to Reform (ignoring Restore so as not to clutter the argument). It's the soft part that is in play. This is a awful lot of voters and I'm expecting AB to win enough of them to romp home. It's an open goal imo. If he's as popular up there as everybody says he is I can't see him doing anything but finding the back of the net.
Burnham should be running explicitly on a stop Farage by replacing Labour's leader and deliver change platform.
That's already implicit, but I don't think it pays to be coy about it.
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
My take:
The Reform vote nationally (and leading the polls) is made up of right-wing ex Tories, (mainly) WWC ex Labourites, and ex non-voters. In Macca it's the last 2 blocs who are key. Voters who used to be Labour or not voting and now support Reform. Where these break will determine the byelection. If they stick with Reform, Nigel wins. If enough of them are tempted back to Labour by Andy, he wins.
There's a hard and a soft component to this (non ex Tory) Reform support. The hard bit is those for whom it really is all about Immigration. The soft bit is people who are more just generally fed up about things and feel a bit forgotten by Westminster and by Labour in particular who they expected better of.
The hard 'anti-immigrant' votes belong to Reform (ignoring Restore so as not to clutter the argument). It's the soft part that is in play. This is a awful lot of voters and I'm expecting AB to win enough of them to romp home. It's an open goal imo. If he's as popular up there as everybody says he is I can't see him doing anything but finding the back of the net.
Burnham should be running explicitly on a stop Farage by replacing Labour's leader and deliver change platform.
That's already implicit, but I don't think it pays to be coy about it.
...Burnham rejects claims his morning jogging routine fake Andy Burnham started his day with a run this morning. His shorts are an improvement on the pair he was wearing..
1) Bribery. If you live within x distance of a solar farm, you can be offered free electricity or a monthly payment while the scheme is operation. If you are living next to a new development, a brown envelope per house built is yours. 2) Council funding. Remove caps on council tax. Allow councils to issue bonds, on the strict legal basis that national government doesn't back their bonds. Let them fuck up. Woking is the future.
Lived in Makerfield back in the 80's. Stood for the Council and managed 40% in a straight fight with Labour. Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat. I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Apparently Burnham won every polling district in Greater Manchester when he was re-elected mayor.
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
My take:
The Reform vote nationally (and leading the polls) is made up of right-wing ex Tories, (mainly) WWC ex Labourites, and ex non-voters. In Macca it's the last 2 blocs who are key. Voters who used to be Labour or not voting and now support Reform. Where these break will determine the byelection. If they stick with Reform, Nigel wins. If enough of them are tempted back to Labour by Andy, he wins.
There's a hard and a soft component to this (non ex Tory) Reform support. The hard bit is those for whom it really is all about Immigration. The soft bit is people who are more just generally fed up about things and feel a bit forgotten by Westminster and by Labour in particular who they expected better of.
The hard 'anti-immigrant' votes belong to Reform (ignoring Restore so as not to clutter the argument). It's the soft part that is in play. This is a awful lot of voters and I'm expecting AB to win enough of them to romp home. It's an open goal imo. If he's as popular up there as everybody says he is I can't see him doing anything but finding the back of the net.
Burnham should be running explicitly on a stop Farage by replacing Labour's leader and deliver change platform.
That's already implicit, but I don't think it pays to be coy about it.
Doing that in a constituency where ~50% voted Reform in the locals seems "courageous". These voters are people with a relatively positive view of Farage. They won't vote to "Stop Farage" as they are up for having Farage.
What they really want is SKS gone, ASAP. If Burnham is going to win, he does it by ignoring Farage and running "against" Starmer and the current Labour Party.
The way Reform win this is to hammer home that Burnham is as stupid and vacuous as SKS, and he will do the same stuff as people already hate, because that *is* the ambition of the modern Labour Party. He's just like Starmer - he wants to be PM to be PM, not because he's got any ideas that would be good for the country. Tell that story successfully, and he's done.
Burnham's explanation for the run to his car is that he picked it up from Newton (Presumably Newton-Le-Willows) as he had a pint at the match (Presumably he caught the train to Everton-Sunderland from Newton-Le-Willows station). Then either walked or taxied back to his house post-match (My supposition). I assume he lives near Haydock Park judging by the timings & distances - it looks true to me tbh.
Opponents would prefer we stuck in the past - with Mayors denied the choice to raise revenue to invest locally, supporting growth, tourism & raising the economic potential of their areas.
Tourist tax.
My economics 101 course said that if you raise the price of something you reduce the demand for it, so presumably the intention is to reduce demand for hotel rooms in the city?
Comments
Wokery on stilts.
Interesting choice.
I admired his pragmatic approach.
*complete with petitions on the local events board.
Afrim Sinani, 54, was seen prowling a bustling high street last week and has been traced to a suburban address. His new neighbours are probably oblivious to his vicious past. Sinani shot a man in a revenge killing and was jailed for 20 years in 1996. But he escaped and, with his wife, entered the UK illegally on a lorry in 2000.
He lived in Ilford, Essex, with his wife and three children before he was tracked down and extradited to Albania in 2010. Incredibly, he is now back in the UK, living with his family in a council-owned home in north east London,
Using the fake name of Afrim Pulaj, Sinani had been granted asylum and a British passport after lying about being a Kosovan refugee. He, his wife and three children enjoyed £120,000 in benefits until 2010. Sinani's family were allowed to remain in the UK after he was deported.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15825923/Albanian-murderer-secretly-living-UK-second-time.html
Again the Mail know this, the authorities clueless.
RFM: 29% (+3)
CON: 17% (-1)
LAB: 17% (=)
GRN: 16% (=)
LDM: 12% (-1)
SNP: 3% (=)
RES: 3% (=)
Via
@techneUK
, 13-15 May.
It's the same as drugs. Block one route and others pop up. President Macron was right – it's the pull factor; Britain is the best country in the world so people pay thousands to come here, so entrepreneurial ne'er-do-wells are drawn to the unofficial travel agency sector.
Also rather bad news for Burnham. Suggests Reform are surging again, at exactly the wrong time
https://manchestermill.co.uk/burnham-makerfield-wigan-simons-reform-labour/
And everyone has seen Burnham jogging, which makes faking it for a photo opportunity a bit odd.
If the voters have reached the stage of thinking that the problem is at least as much Labour as it is Starmer, then Burnham could get buried here.
Why vote for them?
So pay perhaps £150k salary but limit external work to people like the GP or pilot, not (for an obvious example) Farage who appears to be earning in the high six figures from media work, including work overseas on the US media circuit.
Possibly only if she was not a trustee, but purely a beneficiary of the blind trust, but then she would no longer have been a trustee of the vulnerable person trust setup to hold her son’s assets, which seems counter productive?
Labour are heading for an existential crisis if Burnham loses and it looks like it could just happen (I want Burnham to win just to prevent chaos)
There will be increasing calls for a GE if this is the fallout
It makes one very uneasy at the thought of our country with a paralysed government
If the blind trust had messed up this complex situation she would have been fine as she wouldn't have been responsible for all these financial goings on. She could have said with all honesty that she wanted to move and the blind trust had organised it all.
(Apart from the new kids: Reform and the Greens. Hence the stagnation.)
Sound a bit grim for Burnham. My sense of Makerfield, a constituency I know well by googling it a couple of hours ago for 3 minutes, is that the by-election IS becoming a chance to pass sentence on Labour and Starmer, and that Burnham's affability might not count for much against the hatred now invoked by the mere word "Labour"
He could not just lose, he could lose rather badly
HOWEVER it's early doors and Farage could pick some insane candidate and events, dear boy, etc
If your priority is getting Brexit-y, hard right policies (and you can turn a blind eye to the conspiracy theories, corruption and racism), then it makes sense to vote Reform in the by-election. If your priority is the health of the Conservative Party, then it makes sense to vote Conservative. The Tories' priority is to flatten Reform and get Con->Reform switchers back.
If Reform lose, Badenoch can say, "Reform lost in Gorton & Denton and they lost in Makerfield. They are too extreme. Only the Conservatives can beat Labour." If Reform win, Badenoch can say what? "We were squeezed. We're not relevant in lots of places, but please vote for us somewhere"...?
Know the area well, Burnham lives in Golborne, is very well known, was the MP for Leigh next door seat.
I think he will walk it and Reform crash and burn.
Reform: 385
Green: 66
Lib Dems: 61
SNP: 45
Con: 43
Lab: 25
No joke. This poll, if it eventuated at a GE, would see Labour down to 25 MPs and in SIXTH place. Roughly where Mebyon Kernow are now. On the upside, it would give them a real space to rebuild
Sadly, for them, Blair's overwhelming success prevented them from providing succour 1997-2005, and in 2010 circumstances (G. Brown) forced them into bed with Dave 'n' George. They have yet to fulfil their manifold destiny.
#centristnon-dad
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr7pm71rvkvo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/scorecard/e-233516
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/scorecard/e-233516
It does seem a case of Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object.
So houses built on my land.
South Hindley and Winstanley developments evil.
But still no external sources of income, especially from media or speaking. They’re MPs, already paid to speak, don’t let them take money to speak and be beholden to their sponsors.
Almost worth enduring a Reform government with a crushing majority just for that spectacle.
Of course, nothing is forever, and in 2034 or whenever Reform might go the same way ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgzpz7zyd4o
"England was my amazing grace. I went to England, I got my voice," the first lady adds. "I got my independence, and then I was able to fight for myself. And now I can fight for as many young people as possible."
Something else she gained in the UK was a council flat in Southwark in central London, a home she still keeps today where her children live.
As a form of social housing, council homes are usually cheaper to rent than private accommodation and applicants have to meet certain criteria."
Now her kids live there, on a peppercorn rent. How nice for them to have a little pied a terre in a part of wealthy central London where 98% of Brits can only dream of living. And all of it subsidised by the British taxpayers who can't afford to live there
One thing Reform must do, when they reach office, is sort out the scandal of social housing, especially in central London
Farage being a grifter. Well its a bit a like like finding out Russell Brand had a very dodgy past when it came to young ladies.
https://x.com/AvaSantina/status/2056322348219842999?s=20
HMRC has gradually stamped out all of the uses & abuses of trusts to avoid taxes over the years.
As I’ve said before, Ange screwed up but it was an entirely understandable screw up & it’s clear that she was unaware of the obligation to pay the higher rate of stamp duty. She could have avoided it entirely by simply waiting six months to buy a property, had she known.
I'm a LibDem. I've supported a "third party" for decades. It's tough. The Tories do not want to be permanently in the same situation of having to prove their relevance over and over again. They want to be back in the top two, where they are one of the two defaults.
I am saying ministers should do this because then conflicts of interest and either attempts to do some financial engineering or fucks up aren't the responsibility of the minister. If the controllers of the blind trust had told her no extra tax to pay, she wouldn't have had a problem, she could have said with all honesty, I told the blind trust that I wished to move, they arranged it all, it appears they made a mistake. And that would have been the end of it.
But that is a secondary distraction to the main thrust of if we pay ministers more what do we expect in return. The Singapore model is very much anything seen as remotely shifty you are done done. One step towards removing tempation / or appearance of conflict of interest is to put assets into blind trusts.
https://www.ft.com/content/edbe449d-fbb0-4682-8f56-557bd065c76e
Super-rich financier tries to sue the papers to make them not talk about his sexual misconduct. He loses. This is a good story, a well-written piece by the FT.
Isn't Andy Burnham just Starmer in a skimpy Everton kit?
The growth estimate has been upgraded to 1% from 0.8% for 2026 by the influential body, which said last month that the UK would be hit hardest by the Iran war among the world's advanced economies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2p72mmddyo
EXCL: Reform will launch its attack ad blitz on Andy Burnham today. I can exclusively reveal the first set of ads the party will plaster across social media. The graphics attempt to paint Burnham as a career opportunist putting personal ambitions above the people of Makerfield. Here they are 👇
‘ Can't remember who it was said that the best way to understand the Lib Dems is that they are like the fake opposition parties in the Eastern Bloc, who didn’t actually disagree with the regime in any significant way but were allowed to exist to maintain the appearance of pluralism.’
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/coventry-conservatives-new-leader-rules-33951102?fbclid=IwY2xjawR30wFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe6sLrZQ2mx3m7jxmrDpSZuOBnIGRu5rllG3Hqhvi8Uv_piM0LWKaAKkljuq0_aem_zLMf5h9theTn84FpNUI5Jw
"not be forming any alliances or coalitions to achieve a majority"
"biggest crunch point is the council Budget, of course."
"case-by-case basis"
Council is:
Lab 24/Rfm 20/Con 6/Grn 4
ONE MONTH TO SAVE THE LABOUR PARTY ANDY BURNHAM'S CAREER!
‘It’s in the wrong place’, that sort of thing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c4g0eqk2ekeo
This lad can play. Should absolutely be given the chance to start for England at centre. Ardunell not even in the squad.
Presumably the WHFC lease price is related to which league they play, but there’s no reason for taxpayers to be on the hook. Are taxpayers actually writing a £2.5m cheque, or is it that the income is £2.5m less?
Putting that aside it’s a good attack line on Burnham .
Madness to exclude him entirely. Use him, if nothing else, as an electrifying sub
The Greens and Lib Dems together just about outnumber them (and are in coalition elsewhere in Oxfordshire), but the numbers are tight and there'll be unitary elections next year anyway, so they seem to have decided they can't be bothered. They may be right.
Had a good conversation with him about it, he said didn't hide that he was Jewish and actively brought it up in conversations with people who didn't seem bothered. Lots of support for Israel overall he said that the most common minority people there were middle aged and older Jamaican men who very much identify as British, have lived here for 40+ years or were born here. Second place was Indian people who were generally pretty happy to be there waving flags.
The conversations he said were most common were about immigrants, especially more recent ones, not integrating into British culture and society at all and how the state has allowed them to choose that life rather than force them to adopt British values or go to a country which will tolerate that kind of culture. The second most common topic was welfare being paid to immigrants, asylum seekers and illegals - he said there is real anger about this one among everyone he spoke to, stories about illegal boat arrivals getting priority access to housing and healthcare was the topic that got most people very angry. Lots of anger at Labour but also at the Tories for presiding over it. Not a lot of hostility towards Kemi, most people either didn't know who she was or didn't believe that the Tories would win or if they won do anything differently to before.
Anyway, thought it was an interesting chat over our fence this morning while I was having my coffee on the patio.
* he isn't a midget, but not great in the air, in the way Roebuck and Caluori are getting picked because they are brilliant in the air.
Or does that not start until the writ is moved?
Arundell is sensationally quick - I can only assume its other aspects of his game that gets his left out.
When I looked at the rules on Friday you could easily abuse it in the early days before your candidate is known
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/priceline-chatbot-lied-about-refund-and-now-hotel-wont-pay/
Sure, it might mean the death of the Tories, but if defeating Labour is more important it will happen.
The Reform vote nationally (leading the polls) is made up of right-wing ex Tories, (mainly) WWC ex Labourites, and ex non-voters. In Macca it's the last 2 blocs who are key. Voters who used to be Labour or not voting and now support Reform. Where these break will determine the byelection. If they stick with Reform, Nigel wins. If enough of them are tempted back to Labour by Andy, he wins.
There's a hard and a soft component to this (non ex Tory) Reform support. The hard component is those for whom it really is all about Immigration. The soft component is people who are more just generally fed up about things and feel a bit forgotten by Westminster and by Labour in particular who they expected better of.
The hard 'anti-immigrant' votes belong to Reform (ignoring Restore so as not to clutter the argument). It's the soft part that is in play. This is an awful lot of voters and I'm expecting AB to win enough of them to romp home. It's an open goal imo. If he's as popular up there as everybody says he is I can't see him doing anything but finding the back of the net.
https://x.com/Dan4Barnet/status/2055605909515071976
The Overnight Visitor Levy is a big moment in the history of devolution in England.
Opponents would prefer we stuck in the past - with Mayors denied the choice to raise revenue to invest locally, supporting growth, tourism & raising the economic potential of their areas.
Meanwhile presumably if Labour pick AB they are already under spending limits as he's already bouncing about saying he intends to be the candidate.
That's actually quite funny, even if it is rather gaming the system.
That's already implicit, but I don't think it pays to be coy about it.
Starmer says he will back Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate ‘100%’
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/18/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-wes-streeting-andy-burnham-david-lammy-brexit-eu-latest-news-updates
Thus far, it's unrelenting trivia.
...Burnham rejects claims his morning jogging routine fake
Andy Burnham started his day with a run this morning. His shorts are an improvement on the pair he was wearing..
1) Bribery. If you live within x distance of a solar farm, you can be offered free electricity or a monthly payment while the scheme is operation. If you are living next to a new development, a brown envelope per house built is yours.
2) Council funding. Remove caps on council tax. Allow councils to issue bonds, on the strict legal basis that national government doesn't back their bonds. Let them fuck up. Woking is the future.
What they really want is SKS gone, ASAP. If Burnham is going to win, he does it by ignoring Farage and running "against" Starmer and the current Labour Party.
The way Reform win this is to hammer home that Burnham is as stupid and vacuous as SKS, and he will do the same stuff as people already hate, because that *is* the ambition of the modern Labour Party.
He's just like Starmer - he wants to be PM to be PM, not because he's got any ideas that would be good for the country. Tell that story successfully, and he's done.
My economics 101 course said that if you raise the price of something you reduce the demand for it, so presumably the intention is to reduce demand for hotel rooms in the city?