Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
She is merely repeating the Irish Government stance that repeatedly characterises Israel’s actions as "genocidal" and a "human catastrophe" that violates international humanitarian law.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Most of that is familiar adjustments to the detail of how to raise lots of tax in a social democracy of the sort we have been since 1945. Utilities being in public ownership was the stuff of successive Tory governments from 1951-1974. Socialism this ain't.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
Yeah, absolutely nothing grubby about the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha currently degrading the country with their loathsome presence.
In any normal country this kind of shit would get the tumbrils rolling, but here it'll be 'they deserve it!', just like sending their sprog to £60k a year Eton.
It's Trump with an RP accent.
Nina @ShakeLS · 18 Jun The British Royal family using a fleet of very expensive cars to move around from Ascot to Windsor. You keep paying for them and all their gifter associates hahahaha 😂 😜
So what? Profits of the Crown Estate and duchies fund the royals not taxpayers beyond security. They also need secure cars to protect them wherever they travel
Tuesday is the tenth anniversary of the United Kingdom voting to put economic sanctions on itself and I had planned to do several threads on Brexit but now I'll be doing lots of threads on Starmer being ousted/the Labour leadership contest instead.
Didn't we recently have a very well written series of guest headers explaining how well Brexit has gone? So I believe therefore, Brexit has probably been more than covered.
Those headers probably need to be countered BBC style with something that represents the wide consensus across economists that it hasn’t, actually, been a brilliant success.
It’s moot though for a betting site. Public opinion continues to move firmly against it, which is what matters in this context. The contrast with SINDY is really interesting, where we are in stasis.
I don’t recall that as the thrust of the argument. It was more that those who claimed it was a disaster were overstating their case, and used data to show this. If you want to show the opposite I’d love to read it.
It started like that (and was convincing - I don’t really believe it’s cost the economy as much as that particular study suggested), but when you start suggesting zero or even positive impact you’re in an very small and eccentric group of analysts.
I feel no need whatsoever to show the opposite, in the same way I don’t feel the need to demonstrate that the planet is getting hotter.
you live in Scotland, living proof it is not , still bloody cold and it is nearly July, warming my arse
Reflecting on the Makerfield byelection result, I think (as I said) that Burnham was the favourite going in, and never really looked troubled.
Reform would always have struggled, but I think could have performed better if they had developed an effective counternarrative against Burnham, beyond their charge that he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. That was clearly believed by a lot of people, but it couldn't really go anywhere. I felt where Burnham was weakest was at the point of WASPI - it was an embarrassing f U-turn in real time. But for whatever reason it didn't seem that this was capitalised on.
They also had a problem with the plumber, who I don't think was a terrible candidate, but was undoubtedly damaged, particularly by the Vorderman letter to the women of Makerfield. The letter was an utterly cynical piece of confected outrage, and I think in response I would have issued an utterly cynical confected apology, and gone the 'bad boy forgiven' route. I also might have been tempted to put Kenyon up for an interrogation with someone like Kuensberg so the public could see him sweat it out. High risk, but I think many women might have seen it and ended up with some sneaking sympathy. His line would have been - 'sorry, regret my comments, however do we want a society where the only people who are allowed to hold office are people who have never said anything regrettable on social media?'.
Even with all that, I think Reform's best result would have been to be 'robbed' by Restore. That would have fit their narrative nicely. Sadly they just missed out.
On your last point - I appreciate the short term benefit of that (consolidate the hard-right vote) - but isn’t that an extremely limited strategy?
Having a big argument with Lowe about split votes and precisely how many pogroms to conduct isn’t going to put Farage into No 10. At least this time they aren’t blaming “family voting”, which suggests they’ve learnt the lesson from last time.
Marina Hyde analyses it rather better than does Lucky.
Nobody fetishises plain speaking like Farage, so we owe it to him to honour that and observe that Reform really shat the bed. Makerfield is among the party’s top 10 target seats for a general election, and Reform strategists’ decision to field yet another inadequate liability, whose past social media activity they simply couldn’t be arsed checking, seems to have proved something of a turn-off – for example for women, who strangely didn’t feel minded to vote for someone who had said: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Rob Kenyon will no doubt be back on his plumbing rounds next week. So, Makerfield ladies, make sure your husband’s home to be consulted as to whether you really want your sink unblocked. It’ll honestly be cheaper to replace it.
Meanwhile it would take a heart of stone not to cackle at the fact that Reform is now losing votes to an insurgent party to its right. The thing to remember about Restore is that it is a party that genuinely only exists because Nigel couldn’t handle some light strategic criticism from Rupert Lowe. Why? Because Nigel is, and always has been, a diva who has huge fallouts with colleagues and allies...
Yes, if anyone is ever going to get their finger on the pulse of Reform and working class areas like Makerfield it’s Guardian writing upper class tedious Posho, Marina Hyde.
Makerfield seems to me to be a one-off, a vote for Burnham. Reform increased its vote from the GE, as it did in the other by-elections I think, and increased its vote in many council by-elections, winning at least one. Was shafted in Essex for some reason, probably some local thing, maybe HYUFD can explain. The Wiki polling graph is showing Reform ticking upwards. So not much change really. Extrapolation from one by-election with unique circumstances to a general election in three years time seems foolish to me.
At a GE Restore will only stand in a few seats, and Kenyon's selection was only a mistake if you believe there are no sexists in the population, or people believing that a bit of pub banter type language is no bad thing, or should be disregarded as "freedom of speech".
There was also an extremely nasty incident in Edinburgh last night, involving someone allegedly mowing down delivery cyclists and running about with a big knife.
Baffled as to why it’s not got into the news yet (other than our local press). I suspect there would be a different reaction if the ethnicities were reversed, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how the Crown Office approach it.
Looks like the Bandon pipe bomb was far right terror too. The house the pipe bomb was found outside of was is said to be that of a couple involved in developing accommodation for asylum seekers.
Don’t be so negative.
The Peace Process is spreading by example.
Isn’t it great when successful cultural practices are taken up by others?
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
'Two trains collide' hardly seems an accurate headline if one train ran into a train in front, possibly stationary. Is that the phrase they use about a car running into the one in front at roundabouts?
I'd been envisaging parallel tracks with points that somehow got wrongly switched.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Besides, I wouldn't really call Ireland's Head of State saying something 'inferfering'. It has about as much impact as farting at HMS Victory.
"If Reform continues to falter – battling a talent deficit, Rupert Lowe, donation scandals, and a mysterious growing animosity among female voters – it’s not unthinkable that Burnham could beat them."
(My italics)
Mysterious? What's mysterious about it? They think Farage and co are a bunch of old skool sexists.
There's a strand of public opinion that thinks that old skool sexism is what The Laydezzz want. The correlation between thinking that and taking the Telegraph is probably pretty high.
Hence the Reform announcement last week on women’s rights.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Besides, I wouldn't really call Ireland's Head of State saying something 'inferfering'. It has about as much impact as farting at HMS Victory.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
True but it's been bouncing around administrators arriving on Monday for 2 years.
And hopefully was there because we both know there isn't one and when the administrators arrive the Government is going to act shocked...
Heck you couldn't run a scout pack as unprepared as most recent Governments have been,.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
Yeah, absolutely nothing grubby about the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha currently degrading the country with their loathsome presence.
In any normal country this kind of shit would get the tumbrils rolling, but here it'll be 'they deserve it!', just like sending their sprog to £60k a year Eton.
It's Trump with an RP accent.
Nina @ShakeLS · 18 Jun The British Royal family using a fleet of very expensive cars to move around from Ascot to Windsor. You keep paying for them and all their gifter associates hahahaha 😂 😜
So what? Profits of the Crown Estate and duchies fund the royals not taxpayers beyond security. They also need secure cars to protect them wherever they travel
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
True but it's been bouncing around administrators arriving on Monday for 2 years.
And hopefully was there because we both know there isn't one and when the administrators arrive the Government is going to act shocked...
Heck you couldn't run a scout pack as unprepared as most recent Governments have been,.
Standard politics. They deliberately don't (officially) know so they can still make big promises and then explain how, unfortunately, they cannot then deliver because of 'unforseen circumstances'.
Joe Biden 1988 Presidential campaign: withdrew before the primaries 2008 Presidential campaign: Iowa caucus, came fifth with 1%, withdrew 2020 Presidential campaign: elected President
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Joe Biden 1988 Presidential campaign: withdrew before the primaries 2008 Presidential campaign: Iowa caucus, came fifth with 1%, withdrew 2020 Presidential campaign: elected President
Did worse than Burnham, won in the end.
And, had he accepted his limitations halfway though his term, would now be seen as a great, one term president.
But then again, had he accepted his limitations, would probably never have been president in the first place.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
About a third of Thames Water's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Incredible. Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating. Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation. £100b has been mentioned!
But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.
If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.
So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.
Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
Yeah, absolutely nothing grubby about the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha currently degrading the country with their loathsome presence.
In any normal country this kind of shit would get the tumbrils rolling, but here it'll be 'they deserve it!', just like sending their sprog to £60k a year Eton.
It's Trump with an RP accent.
Nina @ShakeLS · 18 Jun The British Royal family using a fleet of very expensive cars to move around from Ascot to Windsor. You keep paying for them and all their gifter associates hahahaha 😂 😜
So what? Profits of the Crown Estate and duchies fund the royals not taxpayers beyond security. They also need secure cars to protect them wherever they travel
The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the monarch.
The Duchy of Cornwall is the private estate of the heir.
The Crown Estate is the property of the crown but the income is reserved as a result to the nation.
Yes, my error. But as noted, their status is slowly changing. It's a dance between the monarchy and parliament, but the latter is gradually asserting its powers, and I think that will be a one way ratchet.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
About a third of Thames Water's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Incredible. Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating. Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation. £100b has been mentioned!
But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.
If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.
So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.
Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.
Will Burnham grasp the nettle ?
If the private shareholders don't like it, they could prevent administration by paying off the debt themselves, of course.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
Yeah, absolutely nothing grubby about the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha currently degrading the country with their loathsome presence.
In any normal country this kind of shit would get the tumbrils rolling, but here it'll be 'they deserve it!', just like sending their sprog to £60k a year Eton.
It's Trump with an RP accent.
Nina @ShakeLS · 18 Jun The British Royal family using a fleet of very expensive cars to move around from Ascot to Windsor. You keep paying for them and all their gifter associates hahahaha 😂 😜
So what? Profits of the Crown Estate and duchies fund the royals not taxpayers beyond security. They also need secure cars to protect them wherever they travel
The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the monarch.
The Duchy of Cornwall is the private estate of the heir.
The Crown Estate is the property of the crown but the income is reserved as a result to the nation.
Yes, my error. But as noted, their status is slowly changing. It's a dance between the monarchy and parliament, but the latter is gradually asserting its powers, and I think that will be a one way ratchet.
Just as the quality of politicians is declining. I shudder to think of the future former politicians who will become President.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
The Swiss accept that it's necessary to have a neutral person doing formal things like hosting state dinners and handing out medals, but no reason to make a big fuss over it, so they rotate the role each year between members of the government. That seems to meet the requirement to have someone without wasting a lot of money and fuss.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
Yeah, absolutely nothing grubby about the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha currently degrading the country with their loathsome presence.
In any normal country this kind of shit would get the tumbrils rolling, but here it'll be 'they deserve it!', just like sending their sprog to £60k a year Eton.
It's Trump with an RP accent.
Nina @ShakeLS · 18 Jun The British Royal family using a fleet of very expensive cars to move around from Ascot to Windsor. You keep paying for them and all their gifter associates hahahaha 😂 😜
So what? Profits of the Crown Estate and duchies fund the royals not taxpayers beyond security. They also need secure cars to protect them wherever they travel
The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the monarch.
The Duchy of Cornwall is the private estate of the heir.
The Crown Estate is the property of the crown but the income is reserved as a result to the nation.
Yes, my error. But as noted, their status is slowly changing. It's a dance between the monarchy and parliament, but the latter is gradually asserting its powers, and I think that will be a one way ratchet.
The monarch could rightfully refuse to sign a bill enabling state ownership of the duchies as that would be theft of private land.
The Crown Estate arguably the State could take more interest in but even then it belongs to the monarch as corporation sole even if its profits go to the state in part to fund the sovereign grant
Reflecting on the Makerfield byelection result, I think (as I said) that Burnham was the favourite going in, and never really looked troubled.
Reform would always have struggled, but I think could have performed better if they had developed an effective counternarrative against Burnham, beyond their charge that he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. That was clearly believed by a lot of people, but it couldn't really go anywhere. I felt where Burnham was weakest was at the point of WASPI - it was an embarrassing f U-turn in real time. But for whatever reason it didn't seem that this was capitalised on.
They also had a problem with the plumber, who I don't think was a terrible candidate, but was undoubtedly damaged, particularly by the Vorderman letter to the women of Makerfield. The letter was an utterly cynical piece of confected outrage, and I think in response I would have issued an utterly cynical confected apology, and gone the 'bad boy forgiven' route. I also might have been tempted to put Kenyon up for an interrogation with someone like Kuensberg so the public could see him sweat it out. High risk, but I think many women might have seen it and ended up with some sneaking sympathy. His line would have been - 'sorry, regret my comments, however do we want a society where the only people who are allowed to hold office are people who have never said anything regrettable on social media?'.
Even with all that, I think Reform's best result would have been to be 'robbed' by Restore. That would have fit their narrative nicely. Sadly they just missed out.
On your last point - I appreciate the short term benefit of that (consolidate the hard-right vote) - but isn’t that an extremely limited strategy?
Having a big argument with Lowe about split votes and precisely how many pogroms to conduct isn’t going to put Farage into No 10. At least this time they aren’t blaming “family voting”, which suggests they’ve learnt the lesson from last time.
Marina Hyde analyses it rather better than does Lucky.
Nobody fetishises plain speaking like Farage, so we owe it to him to honour that and observe that Reform really shat the bed. Makerfield is among the party’s top 10 target seats for a general election, and Reform strategists’ decision to field yet another inadequate liability, whose past social media activity they simply couldn’t be arsed checking, seems to have proved something of a turn-off – for example for women, who strangely didn’t feel minded to vote for someone who had said: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Rob Kenyon will no doubt be back on his plumbing rounds next week. So, Makerfield ladies, make sure your husband’s home to be consulted as to whether you really want your sink unblocked. It’ll honestly be cheaper to replace it.
Meanwhile it would take a heart of stone not to cackle at the fact that Reform is now losing votes to an insurgent party to its right. The thing to remember about Restore is that it is a party that genuinely only exists because Nigel couldn’t handle some light strategic criticism from Rupert Lowe. Why? Because Nigel is, and always has been, a diva who has huge fallouts with colleagues and allies...
Yes, if anyone is ever going to get their finger on the pulse of Reform and working class areas like Makerfield it’s Guardian writing upper class tedious Posho, Marina Hyde.
So what exactly that she said is inaccurate;
Reform had a poor candidate? They didn’t do a good enough job vetting him? It’s a poor performance in their No 10 target if they are to win power? Farage can’t take criticism? Woman don’t like sexism? Restore are causing them Problems?
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Depends what they did beforehand, some like the Kinnocks made most of their money from politics. Some like Tice, Lowe and the Rees Moggs, David Laws, Zac Goldsmith and the Sunaks had far more money before they entered politics than they have earnt from politics
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Not that I noticed during 13 years in Parliament - it's not that I deliberately refrained from making money, but I can't even think of an opportunity that MPs have to make it, though they're much better paid than when I first applied (£98K vs £39K IIRC). Perhaps Glenys inherited money?
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
About a third of Thames Water's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Incredible. Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating. Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation. £100b has been mentioned!
But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.
If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.
So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.
Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.
Will Burnham grasp the nettle ?
If the private shareholders don't like it, they could prevent administration by paying off the debt themselves, of course.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
£1.5m is not very much. I'm surprised it wasn't more.
A friend of mine ours was an engineer at power plants. He built a bungalow himself in the 1950s as he didn't have a lot of money at the time. I don't think he ever earned a vast amount.
When we saw him he was always wearing stuff from charity shops and never showed any sign of having a lot of money. He always used public transport to get about and we'd give him a lift to wherever it was we were going.
He died in rather tragic circumstances and as he had no descendents left his estate to charity.
Despite the house needing demolition and the land not being terribly valuable he had about £1m in cash...
[Welcome to Yorkshire!]
If you don't have an extravagant lifestyle you can save quite a lot of money on a normal income [a lot less than an MEP gets].
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
You should think very carefully about the future before suggesting ceremonial heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Not that I noticed during 13 years in Parliament - it's not that I deliberately refrained from making money, but I can't even think of an opportunity that MPs have to make it, though they're much better paid than when I first applied (£98K vs £39K IIRC). Perhaps Glenys inherited money?
Hardly a big number for Glenys. However overlapping your time NP would be Mandelson. Did it never strike you as odd that he funded his lifestyle so easily?
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the city. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers and if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
His crash has started before he's even got the job.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
Surely that's a false dichotomy. Head of Government vs Purely Ceremonial. Presidents can have political/constitutional roles in between those extremes. For a start, your King doesn't have a purely ceremonial role which as an ardent monarchist you would realise.
Not that I noticed during 13 years in Parliament - it's not that I deliberately refrained from making money, but I can't even think of an opportunity that MPs have to make it, though they're much better paid than when I first applied (£98K vs £39K IIRC). Perhaps Glenys inherited money?
Hardly a big number for Glenys. However overlapping your time NP would be Mandelson. Did it never strike you as odd that he funded his lifestyle so easily?
MPs don't particularly socialise (your time is divided between office and constituency, with maybe the odd dinner with colleagues), so I never had a view about Mandelson's wealth or otherwise. My only contact with him was as a Minister, in which he was fairly effective and (not all that common) had interesting ideas.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
You should think very carefully about the future before suggesting ceremonial heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics.
Why? They shouldn’t end of. They should leave interfering in politics to heads of government ie the PM in constitutional monarchies
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
An estate of £1.5 million, including property, is a healthy amount, but it’s not exceptional. Let me quote a website…
Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that the number of deceased estates valued at more than £1 million has risen by over one-third in five years.
In 2013-14, there were 8,340 estates worth over a £1million, whilst in 2018-19 the number stood at 11,210.
Inflation since then has been high. £1 million in 2013-4 is basically £1.5 million now. G Kinnock was working as an MEP. She presumably inherited from her husband, who was at the top of UK politics. If they bought property in London in the 1970s, they would’ve benefited from the property boom. This seems a weird example to claim politicians are just in it for the money,
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Not that I noticed during 13 years in Parliament - it's not that I deliberately refrained from making money, but I can't even think of an opportunity that MPs have to make it, though they're much better paid than when I first applied (£98K vs £39K IIRC). Perhaps Glenys inherited money?
Hardly a big number for Glenys. However overlapping your time NP would be Mandelson. Did it never strike you as odd that he funded his lifestyle so easily?
MPs don't particularly socialise (your time is divided between office and constituency, with maybe the odd dinner with colleagues), so I never had a view about Mandelson's wealth or otherwise. My only contact with him was as a Minister, in which he was fairly effective and (not all that common) had interesting ideas.
MPs do read newspapers though. There must have been at least a vague sense of it being odd?
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the city. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers and if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
How many in the city, or landowners and developers are Tory faithful?
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Or the question being asked was not about racism but about who should be PM.
Yes. I cannot really see that Reform have done especially badly, given that their entire schtick in recent months has been 'Get Starmer Out', but every voter in the by-election knew that the quickest way to do that was to elect Burnham.
What do you think a good result for Reform would be in the Greater Manchester Mayoral election? What would be lacklustre?
It's easy for people to rationalise poor results after the event, so it might be more instructive to set a yardstick beforehand.
I said beforehand that Burnham was the favourite, and that has been my consistent position.
You on the other hand are claiming that a byelection won on the express understanding that the Labour Prime Minister would be ousted is somehow a victory for Labour. Perhaps that is what passes for a victory these days, but somehow I can't quite see if Ben Houchen had won a parliamentary byelection by promising to unseat Badenoch, that you'd be telling us what a great night it was for the Tories.
As for Greater Manchester, I wouldn't attempt even a casual prediction (which is all it would ever be) until all the candidates are known.
I have not said that the Makerfield by-election was a win for Labour. You must be confusing me with someone else.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
Surely that's a false dichotomy. Head of Government vs Purely Ceremonial. Presidents can have political/constitutional roles in between those extremes. For a start, your King doesn't have a purely ceremonial role which as an ardent monarchist you would realise.
Effectively he does. The King has never vetoed a law passed by Parliament, never proposed a change to UK tax or spending to Parliament other than what the PM’s government had proposed and never sent troops to war either. The PM and Parliament now do all that
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
An estate of £1.5 million, including property, is a healthy amount, but it’s not exceptional. Let me quote a website…
Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that the number of deceased estates valued at more than £1 million has risen by over one-third in five years.
In 2013-14, there were 8,340 estates worth over a £1million, whilst in 2018-19 the number stood at 11,210.
Inflation since then has been high. £1 million in 2013-4 is basically £1.5 million now. G Kinnock was working as an MEP. She presumably inherited from her husband, who was at the top of UK politics. If they bought property in London in the 1970s, they would’ve benefited from the property boom. This seems a weird example to claim politicians are just in it for the money,
Her husband, last time I checked, is still alive so no inheritance from that source.
Reflecting on the Makerfield byelection result, I think (as I said) that Burnham was the favourite going in, and never really looked troubled.
Reform would always have struggled, but I think could have performed better if they had developed an effective counternarrative against Burnham, beyond their charge that he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. That was clearly believed by a lot of people, but it couldn't really go anywhere. I felt where Burnham was weakest was at the point of WASPI - it was an embarrassing f U-turn in real time. But for whatever reason it didn't seem that this was capitalised on.
They also had a problem with the plumber, who I don't think was a terrible candidate, but was undoubtedly damaged, particularly by the Vorderman letter to the women of Makerfield. The letter was an utterly cynical piece of confected outrage, and I think in response I would have issued an utterly cynical confected apology, and gone the 'bad boy forgiven' route. I also might have been tempted to put Kenyon up for an interrogation with someone like Kuensberg so the public could see him sweat it out. High risk, but I think many women might have seen it and ended up with some sneaking sympathy. His line would have been - 'sorry, regret my comments, however do we want a society where the only people who are allowed to hold office are people who have never said anything regrettable on social media?'.
Even with all that, I think Reform's best result would have been to be 'robbed' by Restore. That would have fit their narrative nicely. Sadly they just missed out.
On your last point - I appreciate the short term benefit of that (consolidate the hard-right vote) - but isn’t that an extremely limited strategy?
Having a big argument with Lowe about split votes and precisely how many pogroms to conduct isn’t going to put Farage into No 10. At least this time they aren’t blaming “family voting”, which suggests they’ve learnt the lesson from last time.
Marina Hyde analyses it rather better than does Lucky.
Nobody fetishises plain speaking like Farage, so we owe it to him to honour that and observe that Reform really shat the bed. Makerfield is among the party’s top 10 target seats for a general election, and Reform strategists’ decision to field yet another inadequate liability, whose past social media activity they simply couldn’t be arsed checking, seems to have proved something of a turn-off – for example for women, who strangely didn’t feel minded to vote for someone who had said: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Rob Kenyon will no doubt be back on his plumbing rounds next week. So, Makerfield ladies, make sure your husband’s home to be consulted as to whether you really want your sink unblocked. It’ll honestly be cheaper to replace it.
Meanwhile it would take a heart of stone not to cackle at the fact that Reform is now losing votes to an insurgent party to its right. The thing to remember about Restore is that it is a party that genuinely only exists because Nigel couldn’t handle some light strategic criticism from Rupert Lowe. Why? Because Nigel is, and always has been, a diva who has huge fallouts with colleagues and allies...
Yes, if anyone is ever going to get their finger on the pulse of Reform and working class areas like Makerfield it’s Guardian writing upper class tedious Posho, Marina Hyde.
So what exactly that she said is inaccurate;
Reform had a poor candidate? They didn’t do a good enough job vetting him? It’s a poor performance in their No 10 target if they are to win power? Farage can’t take criticism? Woman don’t like sexism? Restore are causing them Problems?
Play the Ball, not the Woman!
Peter.
Possibly, but don't forget Reform are going for the sexist vote (or anti-woke, if you prefer) They increased their vote from the GE. The next election won't be next Thursday and Restore won't be standing against them in most seats. What they do now doesn't have much relevance to 2 or 3 years time. Of course a huge crash might show they are a spent force, but this isn't it. Restore didn't make the difference anyway No politician can take criticism, our system doesn't allow it.
It might be slightly sub par but I think what she said is just left-liberal wishcasting. Reform's ascent to power isn't going to be linear in any case, you expect ups and downs.
The biggest issue is the willingness of the non-Reform voter to vote tactically which I am not sure is yet understood
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to public ownership but in my view if something has obviously failed in the private sector who can’t we just accept it and move on. It’s this weird idea that it can only be temporary that is terrible for long term planning.
There is nothing left or right about natural and essential monopolies being outside the private sector. The essence of private enterprise is free and open competition. With water this cannot happen, so you have to invent a regulator who (not very well) governs activity and profits. That is more like rentierdom.
If water were in the public sector now it would not occur to right or left to privatise it any more than they plan to privatise the M1.
Well my point. We tried it and it has failed. Just accept some things are better nor in private ownership and call it a day. Why does the UK always decide to operate outside of every other country in Europe?
Water industry is nationalised in China, mostly privately owned now in France
The water industry in the United States is predominantly in public ownership. Publicly owned municipal water utilities serve 87% of customers in the US. It's not just China.
One reason why water was privatised was because a large amount of expensive work was required that couldn't be justified / placed on government borrowing.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
“Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan..”
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
About a third of Thames Water's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Incredible. Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating. Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation. £100b has been mentioned!
But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.
If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.
So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.
Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.
Will Burnham grasp the nettle ?
If the private shareholders don't like it, they could prevent administration by paying off the debt themselves, of course.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Not that I noticed during 13 years in Parliament - it's not that I deliberately refrained from making money, but I can't even think of an opportunity that MPs have to make it, though they're much better paid than when I first applied (£98K vs £39K IIRC). Perhaps Glenys inherited money?
I think MEPs might be better paid than MPs. An MEP today is on 135k Euros. Her husband was Leader of the Opposition, not just an MP, for many years, so on a higher salary, and he’d be on a Ministerial salary before that,
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
We need social care sorting. It is a disaster area at present. If he manages to tackle it successfully he'd be far likelier to get my vote than at present, even if it involved paying.
If popularity depends on avoiding reality then PM Farage or Polanski it is...
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
An estate of £1.5 million, including property, is a healthy amount, but it’s not exceptional. Let me quote a website…
Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that the number of deceased estates valued at more than £1 million has risen by over one-third in five years.
In 2013-14, there were 8,340 estates worth over a £1million, whilst in 2018-19 the number stood at 11,210.
Inflation since then has been high. £1 million in 2013-4 is basically £1.5 million now. G Kinnock was working as an MEP. She presumably inherited from her husband, who was at the top of UK politics. If they bought property in London in the 1970s, they would’ve benefited from the property boom. This seems a weird example to claim politicians are just in it for the money,
Her husband, last time I checked, is still alive so no inheritance from that source.
Ahhhhhhhhhh! My apologies. I could’ve sworn he passed away.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
Surely that's a false dichotomy. Head of Government vs Purely Ceremonial. Presidents can have political/constitutional roles in between those extremes. For a start, your King doesn't have a purely ceremonial role which as an ardent monarchist you would realise.
Effectively he does. The King has never vetoed a law passed by Parliament, never proposed a change to UK tax or spending to Parliament other than what the PM’s government had proposed and never sent troops to war either. The PM and Parliament now do all that
Although the King doesn't exercise a veto these days, there is a convention that requires Parliament to seek the monarch's formal permission before even debating any bill that affects the private property, hereditary revenues, or personal interests of the Crown. This has occasionally resulted in governments altering the text of draft legislation behind closed doors.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
My advice to Starmer's wife is to gently tell him it's over and to resign on Monday but offer to stay in office until his successor is appointed
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on, Starmer would be vilified
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
We need social care sorting. It is a disaster area at present. If he manages to tackle it successfully he'd be far likelier to get my vote than at present, even if it involved paying.
If popularity depends on avoiding reality then PM Farage or Polanski it is...
It will take courage and hard choices. Boris and Keir both wasted their large majorities and punted the issue, hopefully Andy will try.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
We need social care sorting. It is a disaster area at present. If he manages to tackle it successfully he'd be far likelier to get my vote than at present, even if it involved paying.
If popularity depends on avoiding reality then PM Farage or Polanski it is...
No Kemi also opposes a dementia tax and social care levy as does Davey and Lowe. Personally I would prefer a Japanese insurance style system but any form of dementia tax again would be electoral suicide for Burnham, especially if he scrapped inheritance tax only largely paid by millionaires now thanks to Osborne and replaced it with a social care levy paid by most homeowners
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
An estate of £1.5 million, including property, is a healthy amount, but it’s not exceptional. Let me quote a website…
Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that the number of deceased estates valued at more than £1 million has risen by over one-third in five years.
In 2013-14, there were 8,340 estates worth over a £1million, whilst in 2018-19 the number stood at 11,210.
Inflation since then has been high. £1 million in 2013-4 is basically £1.5 million now. G Kinnock was working as an MEP. She presumably inherited from her husband, who was at the top of UK politics. If they bought property in London in the 1970s, they would’ve benefited from the property boom. This seems a weird example to claim politicians are just in it for the money,
A professional working couple reaching near the top of their careers, of that age, should comfortably be millionaires.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
My advice to Starmer's wife is to gently tell him it's over and to resign on Monday but offer to stay in office until his successor is appointed
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on Starmer would be vilified
I rather disagree. Starmer has a very strong case. If the rabble seek Burnham like change then they should resign as MPs and seek re-election on an Andy-isn't-he-lovely mandate.
Tuesday is the tenth anniversary of the United Kingdom voting to put economic sanctions on itself and I had planned to do several threads on Brexit but now I'll be doing lots of threads on Starmer being ousted/the Labour leadership contest instead.
Didn't we recently have a very well written series of guest headers explaining how well Brexit has gone? So I believe therefore, Brexit has probably been more than covered.
Those headers probably need to be countered BBC style with something that represents the wide consensus across economists that it hasn’t, actually, been a brilliant success.
It’s moot though for a betting site. Public opinion continues to move firmly against it, which is what matters in this context. The contrast with SINDY is really interesting, where we are in stasis.
I don’t recall that as the thrust of the argument. It was more that those who claimed it was a disaster were overstating their case, and used data to show this. If you want to show the opposite I’d love to read it.
It started like that (and was convincing - I don’t really believe it’s cost the economy as much as that particular study suggested), but when you start suggesting zero or even positive impact you’re in an very small and eccentric group of analysts.
I feel no need whatsoever to show the opposite, in the same way I don’t feel the need to demonstrate that the planet is getting hotter.
you live in Scotland, living proof it is not , still bloody cold and it is nearly July, warming my arse
Perfect weather today, I’m out in the garden watching the goldfinch fledglings (helping with yet another World Cup hangover).
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the city. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers and if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
How many in the city, or landowners and developers are Tory faithful?
Most are Tory or now Reform but they create jobs and investment and can move abroad if taxes get too high here. As happened in the brain drain of the 1970s when the high tax Labour government sent many high earners and wealth creators to Monaco, Hong Kong and Singapore, Switzerland and the USA
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
The City doesn't vote Labour. Landowners and Developers don't vote Labour (and it seems fair for them them to pay council tax on development land at the rate the finished properties will pay). Out of town warehouse owners and renters don't vote Labour.
Quite apart from addressing inefficiencies which seem built into the system, we just don't seem to be raising enough tax to fund the state we want. Rearmament? We can't even fix potholes.
A land value tax replacing both council tax and stamp duty would seem reasonable to me, levied on all land regardless of owner.
One problem us, of course, is that Burnham will have a maximum of 3 years to do unpopular stuff and wait for the memory to fade, or put anything complex in place, rather the normal 4-5
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
The majority of million pound homes are in London and the Home Counties and those who own them elsewhere are largely corporate executives and lawyers etc not Labour politicians and ex teachers
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership. Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.
If that's all I'm left wing too, especially if Thames Water's value is £0 and its debts don't fall on the tax payer. Otherwise, it can't be done because the government's bank balance is minus £3 trillion.
A Burnham quote:
Let me say this really clearly. I support the fiscal rules. There needs to be a plan to get debt down,”
What is needed for Thames Water is that all the current stakeholders, that is shareholders and bond holders get nothing; that the Insolvency Practitioner then goes after those who have received significant payments over the last several years for trading whilst insolvent and unfair preferences (where debt was "repaid"). We need to make it crystal clear that this kind of rip off is not going to be tolerated and that people will be held to account. Oh, and Scotland need to beat Brazil 3-0. Its every bit as likely.
My advice to Starmer's wife is to gently tell him it's over and to resign on Monday but offer to stay in office until his successor is appointed
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on Starmer would be vilified
I rather disagree. Starmer has a very strong case. If the rabble seek Burnham like change then they should resign as MPs and seek re-election on an Andy-isn't-he-lovely mandate.
Starmer is toxic to the electorate and that was evidenced in spades in Makerfield
Reflecting on the Makerfield byelection result, I think (as I said) that Burnham was the favourite going in, and never really looked troubled.
Reform would always have struggled, but I think could have performed better if they had developed an effective counternarrative against Burnham, beyond their charge that he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. That was clearly believed by a lot of people, but it couldn't really go anywhere. I felt where Burnham was weakest was at the point of WASPI - it was an embarrassing f U-turn in real time. But for whatever reason it didn't seem that this was capitalised on.
They also had a problem with the plumber, who I don't think was a terrible candidate, but was undoubtedly damaged, particularly by the Vorderman letter to the women of Makerfield. The letter was an utterly cynical piece of confected outrage, and I think in response I would have issued an utterly cynical confected apology, and gone the 'bad boy forgiven' route. I also might have been tempted to put Kenyon up for an interrogation with someone like Kuensberg so the public could see him sweat it out. High risk, but I think many women might have seen it and ended up with some sneaking sympathy. His line would have been - 'sorry, regret my comments, however do we want a society where the only people who are allowed to hold office are people who have never said anything regrettable on social media?'.
Even with all that, I think Reform's best result would have been to be 'robbed' by Restore. That would have fit their narrative nicely. Sadly they just missed out.
On your last point - I appreciate the short term benefit of that (consolidate the hard-right vote) - but isn’t that an extremely limited strategy?
Having a big argument with Lowe about split votes and precisely how many pogroms to conduct isn’t going to put Farage into No 10. At least this time they aren’t blaming “family voting”, which suggests they’ve learnt the lesson from last time.
Marina Hyde analyses it rather better than does Lucky.
Nobody fetishises plain speaking like Farage, so we owe it to him to honour that and observe that Reform really shat the bed. Makerfield is among the party’s top 10 target seats for a general election, and Reform strategists’ decision to field yet another inadequate liability, whose past social media activity they simply couldn’t be arsed checking, seems to have proved something of a turn-off – for example for women, who strangely didn’t feel minded to vote for someone who had said: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.” Rob Kenyon will no doubt be back on his plumbing rounds next week. So, Makerfield ladies, make sure your husband’s home to be consulted as to whether you really want your sink unblocked. It’ll honestly be cheaper to replace it.
Meanwhile it would take a heart of stone not to cackle at the fact that Reform is now losing votes to an insurgent party to its right. The thing to remember about Restore is that it is a party that genuinely only exists because Nigel couldn’t handle some light strategic criticism from Rupert Lowe. Why? Because Nigel is, and always has been, a diva who has huge fallouts with colleagues and allies...
Yes, if anyone is ever going to get their finger on the pulse of Reform and working class areas like Makerfield it’s Guardian writing upper class tedious Posho, Marina Hyde.
So what exactly that she said is inaccurate;
Reform had a poor candidate? They didn’t do a good enough job vetting him? It’s a poor performance in their No 10 target if they are to win power? Farage can’t take criticism? Woman don’t like sexism? Restore are causing them Problems?
Play the Ball, not the Woman!
Peter.
Possibly, but don't forget Reform are going for the sexist vote (or anti-woke, if you prefer) They increased their vote from the GE. The next election won't be next Thursday and Restore won't be standing against them in most seats. What they do now doesn't have much relevance to 2 or 3 years time. Of course a huge crash might show they are a spent force, but this isn't it. Restore didn't make the difference anyway No politician can take criticism, our system doesn't allow it.
It might be slightly sub par but I think what she said is just left-liberal wishcasting. Reform's ascent to power isn't going to be linear in any case, you expect ups and downs.
The biggest issue is the willingness of the non-Reform voter to vote tactically which I am not sure is yet understood
The dynamic will be very different in a GE where the individual candidate matters far less. I have no idea what the Fukkers thought they were doing when they went with that moronic Deano.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the City. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers. His proposal to increase business rates on out of town warehouses won’t be popular with Amazon. While if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
The City doesn't vote Labour. Landowners and Developers don't vote Labour (and it seems fair for them them to pay council tax on development land at the rate the finished properties will pay). Out of town warehouse owners and renters don't vote Labour.
Quite apart from addressing inefficiencies which seem built into the system, we just don't seem to be raising enough tax to fund the state we want. Rearmament? We can't even fix potholes.
A land value tax replacing both council tax and stamp duty would seem reasonable to me, levied on all land regardless of owner.
One problem us, of course, is that Burnham will have a maximum of 3 years to do unpopular stuff and wait for the memory to fade, or put anything complex in place, rather the normal 4-5
The City determines business confidence in the country though as New Labour and Thatcher and Cameron and Sunak and even Starmer and Reeves to an extent understood. Amazon is one of the biggest employers in the country and can move their warehouses abroad if the tax they pay in the UK gets too high.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
The majority of million pound homes are in London and the Home Counties and those who own them elsewhere are largely corporate executives and lawyers etc not Labour politicians and ex teachers
There are million pound homes in DONCASTER. I passed one for sale only yesterday.
Admittedly rather more house than you'd get in Surrey.
£1m is not a fortune these days. Public sector pensions for anyone in a vaguely professional role must be getting close to being worth £1m.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
But they lived in London. The family home was in Ealing when Neil became LotO. House prices in Ealing from 1983 to today are up approximately 1700%! You want to make money, invent a Time Machine and buy in London in the ‘70s or early ‘80s.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the city. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers and if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
How many in the city, or landowners and developers are Tory faithful?
Most are Tory or now Reform but they create jobs and investment and can move abroad if taxes get too high here. As happened in the brain drain of the 1970s when the high tax Labour government sent many high earners and wealth creators to Monaco, Hong Kong and Singapore, Switzerland and the USA
Two of those have been taken over by dictatorships since then however.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
The majority of million pound homes are in London and the Home Counties and those who own them elsewhere are largely corporate executives and lawyers etc not Labour politicians and ex teachers
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
The majority of million pound homes are in London and the Home Counties and those who own them elsewhere are largely corporate executives and lawyers etc not Labour politicians and ex teachers
There are million pound homes in DONCASTER. I passed one for sale only yesterday.
Admittedly rather more house than you'd get in Surrey.
£1m is not a fortune these days. Public sector pensions for anyone in a vaguely professional role must be getting close to being worth £1m.
You can’t buy a million pound house with all your public sector pension
NZ must be pretty confident about the weather forecast. They had enough runs to win this match ages ago. A painful reminder why one of the greatest batsmen of all time had to give up the captaincy.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes, that's my view.
A strong executive Presidency is probably an inferior form of government to a constitutional monarchy, but I'd prefer an elected President to act as a national figurehead.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
But they lived in London. The family home was in Ealing when Neil became LotO. House prices in Ealing from 1983 to today are up approximately 1700%! You want to make money, invent a Time Machine and buy in London in the ‘70s or early ‘80s.
We bought our home in 1975 for £16,000 then extended it over 4 years, and today our children inform us it is worth about £550,000
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
You should think very carefully about the future before suggesting ceremonial heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics.
Why? They shouldn’t end of. They should leave interfering in politics to heads of government ie the PM in constitutional monarchies
My advice to Starmer's wife is to gently tell him it's over and to resign on Monday but offer to stay in office until his successor is appointed
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on Starmer would be vilified
I rather disagree. Starmer has a very strong case. If the rabble seek Burnham like change then they should resign as MPs and seek re-election on an Andy-isn't-he-lovely mandate.
Starmer is toxic to the electorate and that was evidenced in spades in Makerfield
His race is over
I shall mark your card as a rabble-rouser
I'm sure you're mostly of Tory blood, as am I. So we're perhaps not the best to comment. Nonetheless Starmer has delivered broadly stable government and Reeves has delivered a broadly stable financial background. I think that in both cases this represents hat-tip like achievement.
The background they had to deal with was shameful. Several Tory PMs really let themselves down.
And so Kemi.
She's doing well, but I have no idea if she really can take the bull by the horns and pre-announce the heavy revision to the state that is long overdue. I hope she can.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
But they lived in London. The family home was in Ealing when Neil became LotO. House prices in Ealing from 1983 to today are up approximately 1700%! You want to make money, invent a Time Machine and buy in London in the ‘70s or early ‘80s.
You dont even need the house prices, they would have had more than enough through salary to save a couple of million, which invested would turn into a few million.
Neil was vice president of the European Commission - thats a 300k euros role with and 80k a year pension. She was a Euro MP which is around 100k salary and 45k a year pension for 15 years service.
Perhaps those surprised that such wealth can be accumulated might change their mind on taxing wealth a lot more?
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I have always wondered how James Callaghan was able to buy a 130 acre farm in East Sussex.
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
Even in our corner of West Yorkshire there are £1m+ properties.
I just think @HYUFD demeaned Wales by his comment as there are million pound plus homes across the country as across England and Scotland
The majority of million pound homes are in London and the Home Counties and those who own them elsewhere are largely corporate executives and lawyers etc not Labour politicians and ex teachers
There are million pound homes in DONCASTER. I passed one for sale only yesterday.
Admittedly rather more house than you'd get in Surrey.
£1m is not a fortune these days. Public sector pensions for anyone in a vaguely professional role must be getting close to being worth £1m.
My advice to Starmer's wife is to gently tell him it's over and to resign on Monday but offer to stay in office until his successor is appointed
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on Starmer would be vilified
I rather disagree. Starmer has a very strong case. If the rabble seek Burnham like change then they should resign as MPs and seek re-election on an Andy-isn't-he-lovely mandate.
Starmer is toxic to the electorate and that was evidenced in spades in Makerfield
His race is over
I shall mark your card as a rabble-rouser
I'm sure you're mostly of Tory blood, as am I. So we're perhaps not the best to comment. Nonetheless Starmer has delivered broadly stable government and Reeves has delivered a broadly stable financial background. I think that in both cases this represents hat-tip like achievement.
The background they had to deal with was shameful. Several Tory PMs really let themselves down.
And so Kemi.
She's doing well, but I have no idea if she really can take the bull by the horns and pre-announce the heavy revision to the state that is long overdue. I hope she can.
Kemi will fancy herself as Maggie Thatcher to Burnham’s Harold Wilson and Starmer’s Jim Callaghan and Sunak’s Ted Heath
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are lame dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
The Irish President can do keepy-uppies and land a basketball through a hoop backwards, so she makes people smile and people are happy that she can speak the language. She's a good advert for an elected figurehead President.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
You should think very carefully about the future before suggesting ceremonial heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics.
Why? They shouldn’t end of. They should leave interfering in politics to heads of government ie the PM in constitutional monarchies
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes aren’t US Presidents and Presidential elections very cheap, definitely not billions spent there, oh no. Isn’t the US republic also remarkably equal with its billionaire President its lack of universal healthcare, barely any welfare state and a minimum wage far lower than the UK. While those awfully class ridden unequal constitutional monarchies like Sweden, Canada, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan are dreadful places to live…oh wait
Your deranged royalism has not for the first time addled your powers of comprehension. The original comparison was between British and Irish heads of state.
The Irish head of state is a leftist ex politician nonentity, virtually nobody has heard of outside Ireland and who over a third of Irish voters voted against. In any case in a current UK presidential election we might well elect President Farage
She also interferes in politics which heads of state shouldn’t do, calling Israel a ‘genocidal state’
I’m reluctant to intervene since you’ve reached the chuntering to yourself stage, but which rule book says heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics? Since you crowbarred Trump into the conversation I fear I may have some bad news for you on the interfering in politics front.
Trump is also head of government ie the equivalent of the UK and Irish PMs NOT just head of state. Those who are ceremonial heads of state alone and not head of government too or executive head of state should not interfere in politics
You should think very carefully about the future before suggesting ceremonial heads of state shouldn’t interfere in politics.
Why? They shouldn’t end of. They should leave interfering in politics to heads of government ie the PM in constitutional monarchies
Nigel Farage should resist the urge to shift further to the right and consider sacking Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, figures within the party have said after its defeat to Labour in the Makerfield byelection.
Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.
Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election
In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?
Burnham’s camp has said he will restore the 50% additional rate of income tax, introduce a land tax, a social care levy etc. It is not just he will renationalise utilities
Policies for which there is no mandate.
Mandates in manifestos don't matter in practice, except that the HOC can't oppose legislation that is in the manifesto.
However the House of Lords cannot block or amend taxation legislation. So a mandate is irrelevant for these measures.
Which gives Kemi an opportunity, as Reform falters after these by election defeats Labour are about to elect a leader committed to tax rises and nationalisations and taking Labour left which it had no mandate for when it won the 2024 general election with Starmer
If Burnham promotes policies that are generally popular then Kemi saying "He doesn't have a mandate" will fall on deaf ears, except for the Tory faithful.
Burnham restoring the 50% additional rate of income tax certainly won’t be popular with the city. A land tax won’t be popular with landowners and developers and if a rumoured Burnham social care levy hits average home owners that would destroy Burnham’s popularity as badly as the dementia tax did for May’s
How many in the city, or landowners and developers are Tory faithful?
Most are Tory or now Reform but they create jobs and investment and can move abroad if taxes get too high here. As happened in the brain drain of the 1970s when the high tax Labour government sent many high earners and wealth creators to Monaco, Hong Kong and Singapore, Switzerland and the USA
I don't think an increase from 45% to 50% would provoke that in any significant numbers.
Why anyone would want a professional politician with all the grubbiness and politics that causes (look at burnham and his bothering of an electorate to gain personal power) over a constitutional monarch is beyond me
People in Ireland are genuinely delighted with their new President and her ball-playing skills, and when you have a President with extremely limited constitutional power, as in Ireland, it isn't really that contentious.
I find it odd to elect a head of state if they have very limited powers - why bother then? - but clearly it does work.
I'm happy to stick with constitutional monarchy as i think it too works.
Isn't the common factor very limited powers? The advantage with an elected one is it's much cheaper and it doesn't sit at the heart of a hierarchy designed to reinforce a backward-looking, sclerotic class system
Yes, that's my view.
A strong executive Presidency is probably an inferior form of government to a constitutional monarchy, but I'd prefer an elected President to act as a national figurehead.
Trump is such a unifying figure in the US as an elected President, as was Biden as a national figurehead
The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.
The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.
Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.
I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.
Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.
From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.
Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?
The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.
You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?
So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.
Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.
No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.
Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.
I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
Have you seen the price of houses these days?
In the Kinnocks Wales?
We have several homes by us in the 1 million region with one seafront home within 400 yards being fully restored and going on the market for 3 million
The Kinnocks represented South Wales as MPs and MEPs and not even Cardiff
But they lived in London. The family home was in Ealing when Neil became LotO. House prices in Ealing from 1983 to today are up approximately 1700%! You want to make money, invent a Time Machine and buy in London in the ‘70s or early ‘80s.
My father bought a flat in Brixton (he had just arrived on a tramp steamer from South Africa and had no idea about London) for about 5 grand cash in 1960 then sold it in 2015 for considerably more. It was still probably the worst possible area of London to buy and hold a property for 55 years.
Comments
https://behindthethrone.substack.com/p/the-duchy-dilemma-private-purse-public
At a GE Restore will only stand in a few seats, and Kenyon's selection was only a mistake if you believe there are no sexists in the population, or people believing that a bit of pub banter type language is no bad thing, or should be disregarded as "freedom of speech".
Give your head a wobble- again.
Given that Thames Water has been going bankrupt now for 2 years hopefully we have a plan where bond holders who have bought debt designed to pay Thames Water's owners dividends are left holding the can.
And yes that does mean there are some teachers in Canada about to lose a tiny bit of their pensions.
I'd been envisaging parallel tracks with points that somehow got wrongly switched.
It’s been going bankrupt for longer than that.
Plus there’s a tiny flaw in your sentence. “Hopefully we have a plan”.
And hopefully was there because we both know there isn't one and when the administrators arrive the Government is going to act shocked...
Heck you couldn't run a scout pack as unprepared as most recent Governments have been,.
The Duchy of Cornwall is the private estate of the heir.
The Crown Estate is the property of the crown but the income is reserved as a result to the nation.
1988 Presidential campaign: withdrew before the primaries
2008 Presidential campaign: Iowa caucus, came fifth with 1%, withdrew
2020 Presidential campaign: elected President
Did worse than Burnham, won in the end.
Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.
But then again, had he accepted his limitations, would probably never have been president in the first place.
Have they been anywhere near Golborne?
Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating.
Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation.
£100b has been mentioned!
But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.
If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.
So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.
Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.
But as noted, their status is slowly changing. It's a dance between the monarchy and parliament, but the latter is gradually asserting its powers, and I think that will be a one way ratchet.
If the private shareholders don't like it, they could prevent administration by paying off the debt themselves, of course.
The Crown Estate arguably the State could take more interest in but even then it belongs to the monarch as corporation sole even if its profits go to the state in part to fund the sovereign grant
Reform had a poor candidate?
They didn’t do a good enough job vetting him?
It’s a poor performance in their No 10 target if they are to win power?
Farage can’t take criticism?
Woman don’t like sexism?
Restore are causing them Problems?
Play the Ball, not the Woman!
Peter.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/05/thames-water-should-be-nationalised-andy-burnham
The net debt is about £18 billion. I doubt that private shareholders will pay that off!
A friend of mine ours was an engineer at power plants. He built a bungalow himself in the 1950s as he didn't have a lot of money at the time. I don't think he ever earned a vast amount.
When we saw him he was always wearing stuff from charity shops and never showed any sign of having a lot of money. He always used public transport to get about and we'd give him a lift to wherever it was we were going.
He died in rather tragic circumstances and as he had no descendents left his estate to charity.
Despite the house needing demolition and the land not being terribly valuable he had about £1m in cash...
[Welcome to Yorkshire!]
If you don't have an extravagant lifestyle you can save quite a lot of money on a normal income [a lot less than an MEP gets].
Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs have revealed that the number of deceased estates valued at more than £1 million has risen by over one-third in five years.
In 2013-14, there were 8,340 estates worth over a £1million, whilst in 2018-19 the number stood at 11,210.
Inflation since then has been high. £1 million in 2013-4 is basically £1.5 million now. G Kinnock was working as an MEP. She presumably inherited from her husband, who was at the top of UK politics. If they bought property in London in the 1970s, they would’ve benefited from the property boom. This seems a weird example to claim politicians are just in it for the money,
They increased their vote from the GE. The next election won't be next Thursday and Restore won't be standing against them in most seats. What they do now doesn't have much relevance to 2 or 3 years time. Of course a huge crash might show they are a spent force, but this isn't it.
Restore didn't make the difference anyway
No politician can take criticism, our system doesn't allow it.
It might be slightly sub par but I think what she said is just left-liberal wishcasting. Reform's ascent to power isn't going to be linear in any case, you expect ups and downs.
The biggest issue is the willingness of the non-Reform voter to vote tactically which I am not sure is yet understood
I'm aware of Burnham's statement; I'm most interested to see if he actually does it.
If popularity depends on avoiding reality then PM Farage or Polanski it is...
Anything else is frankly cruel and whilst not quite the same, can anyone imagine what would have happened if Jill Biden had taken Joe's hand and quietly said time to pass on the batton Joe
To expose Labour to a very public and probably quite demeaning battle to hold on, Starmer would be vilified
Quite apart from addressing inefficiencies which seem built into the system, we just don't seem to be raising enough tax to fund the state we want. Rearmament? We can't even fix potholes.
A land value tax replacing both council tax and stamp duty would seem reasonable to me, levied on all land regardless of owner.
One problem us, of course, is that Burnham will have a maximum of 3 years to do unpopular stuff and wait for the memory to fade, or put anything complex in place, rather the normal 4-5
His race is over
Admittedly rather more house than you'd get in Surrey.
£1m is not a fortune these days. Public sector pensions for anyone in a vaguely professional role must be getting close to being worth £1m.
The ones around us are privately owned
A strong executive Presidency is probably an inferior form of government to a constitutional monarchy, but I'd prefer an elected President to act as a national figurehead.
They do keep an eye on their investment !!!!!!!
I'm sure you're mostly of Tory blood, as am I. So we're perhaps not the best to comment. Nonetheless Starmer has delivered broadly stable government and Reeves has delivered a broadly stable financial background. I think that in both cases this represents hat-tip like achievement.
The background they had to deal with was shameful. Several Tory PMs really let themselves down.
And so Kemi.
She's doing well, but I have no idea if she really can take the bull by the horns and pre-announce the heavy revision to the state that is long overdue. I hope she can.
Neil was vice president of the European Commission - thats a 300k euros role with and 80k a year pension. She was a Euro MP which is around 100k salary and 45k a year pension for 15 years service.
Perhaps those surprised that such wealth can be accumulated might change their mind on taxing wealth a lot more?
https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/reform-insiders-urge-nigel-farage-to-sack-problem-zia-yusuf-after-makerfield-defeat
Nigel Farage should resist the urge to shift further to the right and consider sacking Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, figures within the party have said after its defeat to Labour in the Makerfield byelection.
I hope he sorts out the £100K cliff edge.