Burnham's. Delivery. Has. A strange. Cadence My wife observes.
Ending rough sleeping. It was done during Covid, it is good to see there is a commitment to do it again.
"We will do better." He said. I think I would have preferred an emphasis on turning around the country being a collective effort that required the involvement of everyone. "We're all in it together," was one of the best political soundbites of our generation.
Like the greatest living Canadian, William Shatner, every word is its own sentence ?
The rough sleeping problem, isn't the sleeping outdoors bit. That's the *outcome*.
Herding them all into accomodation rapidly broke down, during COVID, because of the personal issues of the rough sleepers. Which is why they are rough sleeping in the first place.
Homelessness != Rough Sleeping, as well.
Quite. You can round rough sleepers up and lock them in an institution. Does that solve the problem?
That's pretty much what we used to do. And the initiations were so horrific that people all over the political spectrum fought to end them.
In addition, modern law doesn't allow you to lock people up for making the place look a bit untidy. And doctors will not drug people up to the eyeballs, just to make them manageable, as they used to.
Does Burnham really need to explain he's not advocating concentration camps?
Do you have any evidence that he's not planning concentration camps?
Betfair has suspended and is settling the next PM market. ETA now settled.
Hills has settled on Burnham PM.
Hills next PM after Burnham:- 9/4 Nigel Farage 5/1 Kemi Badenoch 8/1 Shabana Mahmood 8/1 Al Carns 12/1 Robert Jenrick 14/1 Angela Rayner 16/1 Ed Miliband 16/1 James Cleverly 16/1 Wes Streeting 16/1 Yvette Cooper 16/1 Zia Yusuf 16/1 Richard Tice 16/1 Rupert Lowe 22/1 Darren Jones 25/1 Zack Polanksi 33/1 Katie Lam 33/1 Louise Haigh 33/1 Lucy Powell 50/1 Claire Coutinho 50/1 John Healey 50/1 Boris Johnson 50/1 Ed Davey 50/1 Torsten Bell 66/1 Nick Timothy 66/1 Suella Braverman 66/1 Tom Tugendhat 66/1 Chris Philp 66/1 Hilary Benn 66/1 Peter Kyle 66/1 Sarah Sackman 100/1 Jeremy Hunt 100/1 Jeremy Corbyn 100/1 Hamish Falconer 100/1 Nadia Whittome 100/1 Dan Jarvis 100/1 Richard Burgon 100/1 David Lammy 100/1 Rebecca Long-Bailey
9/4 Farage is bonkers. Personally I would take 10/1 or longer. As for the rest, the next PM may be someone not on the list or any list. I think it's likely to be 6+ years away. So it's like betting on the 2028 Derby.
When the market goes up on BFE, just lay all the top ones.
Farage is sinking ready and is just not going to be next PM. Lay down to as much as your account will carry. I genuinely don’t think voters will decide that Kemi is PM material; at very best she will be the Tories’ Neil Kinnock. Mahmood isn’t going to be, and probably doesn’t want to be, PM. Carns, perhaps, has an outside chance, but a whole load of cards would have to fall in precisely the right order, much longer than that 8/1. Jenrick has burnt one bridge after another and will be lucky to continue as some sort of joke figure as Reform slowly sinks beneath the waves. Neither Rayner nor EdM has any ambition to become PM. Which takes you down to HY’s heartthrob Cleverly, who just might be the Tories’ next credible contender, provided the Conservatives find some way of cutting their loopy membership out of decisions as to who becomes their leader.
"I know you wanted Chancellor but we can't replace the first female one with a bloke because I'm a bloke. And the fact is I want to concentrate on domestic matters not get wrapped up in abroad like Keir. This means I need big ticket talent and experience at the FO. Foreign Sec is therefore the most important job in my cabinet. It's more important than Chancellor. So I want the very best person in there. I want you."
Leaked to me by Larry the cat who overheard the conversation at Andy's end.
I have given Supermanc's Mandelist government by and for the Bildungsburgertum a chance but I've decided that I fucking hate it. His time is up. He's got to go. Burnham out.
Some ejaculations are so premature that one wonders what you were aiming to achieve.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
The assumption that disagreement can only be explained by a moral defect is a remarkably illiberal habit. Politics has become a competition to prove who's the better person, rather than who's got the better argument.
If your political philosophy requires you to believe your opponents are less compassionate human beings, it's probably compensating for something.
To invert it - I genuinely can’t comprehend how some PBers can be so callous about people living in Gaza, Trans people etc etc. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that is performative - I’ve no doubt they and many others think like that, and take that into account when considering politics.
Fair enough. I don't think it's performative either. I think people often genuinely reach very different conclusions from the same facts.
Where I part company is when those differences are explained as "they don't care" or "they lack compassion". That's a much stronger claim than "I think they're wrong", and one that's very hard to substantiate.
Most people aren't devoid of empathy. They simply prioritise competing harms differently or disagree about what policies will actually reduce suffering.
And this is why the left so often lose. If you explain disagreement as a deficit of compassion rather than a difference in priorities or judgement, you stop trying to persuade. You end up preaching to people who already agree with you and wondering why everyone else isn't listening.
That may be true - but the observation here was about Burnham personally, and I don’t see any evidence that it’s performative (and others have backed that up with evidence).
I don't think AB's stance on homelessness is performative either. But I can understand why some may think that it is without traducing them personally in return. I can understand why someone might see political calculation in almost any high-profile policy announcement. Disagree with that judgement if you like, but it's quite a leap from "I think you're cynical" to "you don't experience a visceral reaction to human suffering".
I suspect there are few easy votes in ending rough sleeping. It obviously requires investment in more than accommodation, as a lot of rough sleepers are substance abusers, ex-convicts or ex-military, sometimes all of the above.
But a bit like the "Broken Window" theory of crime control, it does make our streets less threatening, particularly to older people and women, so is a key part of visibly improving our town centres.
Morally, it’s to Burnham’s credit. There are zero votes in dealing with rough sleeping, whatsoever. The oddity is that he’s so bullish about it despite his mixed experience in Manchester. Most rough sleepers are suffering from one of a myriad of mental health or addiction problems and those are not easily solved merely by providing supported accommodation and support.
I imagine it's a manifestation of this meme;
Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
More politically, massively reducing rough sleeping is the sort of thing that would visibly make everyone's lives better.
And yes, it means fixing mental health provision. That's in a mess because it's intrinsically difficult to do, and not respected enough in the NHS conversation. (Was it TMay who took it seriously?) But the consequences leak out everywhere.
This is a moderately interesting take on what is otherwise a very tedious culture war on X about Nolan's film.
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey may be the most pro-Western civilization film Hollywood has made in decades - not because it flatters the Greeks, but because it understands civilization as a moral achievement rather than an ethnic possession.
The identitarian far-left and far-right share a premise: that the Western canon is ethnic property. One side condemns it on that basis; the other guards it on the same basis. Nolan refuses the premise, populating Homer's world with various identities while treating the story with absolute seriousness. That’s not a repudiation of the canon but evidence of its triumph: Homer can be inhabited by, and speak to, anyone.
The film’s deepest commitment is to individual moral agency. Odysseus cannot hide behind Greece, military orders, or victory. His choices are his own, and so is his guilt. No collective cause dissolves individual moral responsibility; his final heroism lies not in conquest, but atonement.
That principle extends to hospitality: treat the stranger as you would wish to be treated. When the Greeks violate it, they become the barbarians they fear. Penelope's devastating realization - "You're the people from the sea" - underscores that the enemies of civilization are sometimes its self-appointed defenders, exempting themselves from the principles they claim to uphold.
This is Western civilization at its best - not an ethnicity or a triumphalist myth, but a tradition built around the dignity of the individual, moral responsibility, and atonement. And a civilization strong enough to preserve stories that judge its own heroes remains a civilization worth defending. https://x.com/tylerhnorris/status/2078960088258363722
I watched it yesterday with my son.
When the movie ended, it got a round of applause. (Which was a bit weird, to be honest.)
It was about 25 minutes too long. The first third had too much exposition in it, and should have treated the audience like adults. The middle third could probably simply have lost one encounter (the Sirens?). And did we really need quite so much time with Calypso?
With all that said, it was a great movie, with some fabulous performances. (And a curiously wasted Zendaya.)
And when my son and I were walking back to the car after the game, we talked about exactly the fact that the real journey was Odyssesus realizing that they hadn't been the good guys in Troy.
I was totally unbothered by Helen being black. And I thought Elliott shone in their (very minor) role as the soldier left behind to hand the horse over.
8/10 - could have been 9/10 if it had been a bit more aggressively pruned.
Reeves rumoured to go to defence says Christopher Hope
Reeves to defence, Miliband to housing, Mahmoud to Treasury would be inexplicable. I don’t get it at all.
Reeves to defence would be idiotic, unless some sort of consolation appointment made on the condition that she backs whatever the PM might say on defence spending.
Mahmoud to chancellor makes sense, if you look at it from the politicians’ perspective. Routinely, ministers get captured by their officials (cf. Yes Minister), and it takes a rare senior politician to impose his or her agenda on their department, rather than the other way around. If you stand back and look at Starmer’s government, Mahmoud and Miliband are really the only ministers who have led their departments rather than the other way around (the case for Streeting is borderline). Burnham needs a Chancellor who is loyal, market friendly, and able to drive his agenda through the notoriously obstructive treasury. Since the markets might take fright at Miliband, that leaves Mahmoud as the only remaining choice.
So, for Miliband, Burnham prizes achievement on housing above achievement on energy, so deploy his other achiever into that department.
Then bring Rayner back inside but put her into health, where she will have to encourage people to stop eating, drinking, or smoking - just for the Lolz.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
Not even GCSE level source analysis is required to understand that a charity set up to conquer homelessness has a bit of a vested interest in saying that it is possible....
This is a moderately interesting take on what is otherwise a very tedious culture war on X about Nolan's film.
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey may be the most pro-Western civilization film Hollywood has made in decades - not because it flatters the Greeks, but because it understands civilization as a moral achievement rather than an ethnic possession.
The identitarian far-left and far-right share a premise: that the Western canon is ethnic property. One side condemns it on that basis; the other guards it on the same basis. Nolan refuses the premise, populating Homer's world with various identities while treating the story with absolute seriousness. That’s not a repudiation of the canon but evidence of its triumph: Homer can be inhabited by, and speak to, anyone.
The film’s deepest commitment is to individual moral agency. Odysseus cannot hide behind Greece, military orders, or victory. His choices are his own, and so is his guilt. No collective cause dissolves individual moral responsibility; his final heroism lies not in conquest, but atonement.
That principle extends to hospitality: treat the stranger as you would wish to be treated. When the Greeks violate it, they become the barbarians they fear. Penelope's devastating realization - "You're the people from the sea" - underscores that the enemies of civilization are sometimes its self-appointed defenders, exempting themselves from the principles they claim to uphold.
This is Western civilization at its best - not an ethnicity or a triumphalist myth, but a tradition built around the dignity of the individual, moral responsibility, and atonement. And a civilization strong enough to preserve stories that judge its own heroes remains a civilization worth defending. https://x.com/tylerhnorris/status/2078960088258363722
I watched it yesterday with my son.
When the movie ended, it got a round of applause. (Which was a bit weird, to be honest.)
It was about 25 minutes too long. The first third had too much exposition in it, and should have treated the audience like adults. The middle third could probably simply have lost one encounter (the Sirens?). And did we really need quite so much time with Calypso?
With all that said, it was a great movie, with some fabulous performances. (And a curiously wasted Zendaya.)
And when my son and I were walking back to the car after the game, we talked about exactly the fact that the real journey was Odyssesus realizing that they hadn't been the good guys in Troy.
I was totally unbothered by Helen being black. And I thought Elliott shone in their (very minor) role as the soldier left behind to hand the horse over.
8/10 - could have been 9/10 if it had been a bit more aggressively pruned.
I tend to agree although I am sure most males appreciated the siren scene and the torment / pleasure the calling must have involved!
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
See also Vancouver. It's liberal policies mean it's the homeless Capital of Canada. Erm. It's also the only city you can survive a winter on the streets.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
Not even GCSE level source analysis is required to understand that a charity set up to conquer homelessness has a bit of a vested interest in saying that it is possible....
Eh? Every charity surely has a vested interest in ensuring that whatever social or economic problem that they are trying to resolve is never actually so achieved?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
Bollox. At worst they are realists infinitely preferable to the left hypocrisy which only see selective human suffering which fits their world view - hence the weird obsession with Gaza.
It’s weird for the UK to ally with a country committing a genocide. That’s the distinction.
Anyway, will be interesting to see how Burnham deals with that. Softly softly so far.
Not everyone thinks its a genocide. There seems little sympathy for the people of Israel murdered by Hamas, or taken hostage among the Gaza protesters. Some have genuinely campaigned about both, but most seem to have blind spot.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
Not even GCSE level source analysis is required to understand that a charity set up to conquer homelessness has a bit of a vested interest in saying that it is possible....
Eh? Every charity surely has a vested interest in ensuring that whatever social or economic problem that they are trying to resolve is never actually done so?
Yep; and yet at the same time saying that it is possible
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
See also Vancouver. It's liberal policies mean it's the homeless Capital of Canada. Erm. It's also the only city you can survive a winter on the streets.
Yep: there's a reason why liberal Minneapolis -for all its other problems- has just 427 people with "unsheltered homelessness", while Venice California (with about one fiftieth of the population) has three times that number.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
Bollox. At worst they are realists infinitely preferable to the left hypocrisy which only see selective human suffering which fits their world view - hence the weird obsession with Gaza.
It’s weird for the UK to ally with a country committing a genocide. That’s the distinction.
Anyway, will be interesting to see how Burnham deals with that. Softly softly so far.
Not everyone thinks its a genocide. There seems little sympathy for the people of Israel murdered by Hamas, or taken hostage among the Gaza protesters. Some have genuinely campaigned about both, but most seem to have blind spot.
Most people I know think both Hamas and Netanyahu are scum.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
I tried to read that. It was very long on descriptions of the problem and very short on solutions, and even shorter on detailed solutions (eg what does "assertive outreach" mean in detail?).
When you read the descriptions of the causes of rough sleeping, nearly none of them can be fixed by dictat. What can work is providing help to improve mental health, reduce drug dependency etc.
But these are human problems - you can provide help, but it won’t always work.
Any approach that says “wham! Bang! It’ll be done by Christmas” won’t work.
A flexible, but joined up, series of initiatives across housing, mental health, policing and general social work can reduce the issue. Without just locking up the “problems”.
I think there's a benefit in latency especially for military applications, Also if your data centre is not on earth is it really bound by any of Terra's judicial systems? 21st century sea steading but with data and dodgy image generation.
Kevin Keegan knocking Andy Burnham off tomorrow’s front pages?
A bad day to bury a good striker?
Loved him as a player and he absolutely would have gone for more goals against Argentina. Sadly I cannot forget his role in 2004 - the last minute exit against Romania. Last few minutes, a goal to defend, and I wanted to hear tactical advice from the manager, a change of patterns, an idea. Instead all he had was 'keep believing, Scholesy'.
There was also the odd incident of him being attacked while sleeping in his car - was that ever really explained?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
Bollox. At worst they are realists infinitely preferable to the left hypocrisy which only see selective human suffering which fits their world view - hence the weird obsession with Gaza.
It’s weird for the UK to ally with a country committing a genocide. That’s the distinction.
Anyway, will be interesting to see how Burnham deals with that. Softly softly so far.
Not everyone thinks its a genocide. There seems little sympathy for the people of Israel murdered by Hamas, or taken hostage among the Gaza protesters. Some have genuinely campaigned about both, but most seem to have blind spot.
Most people I know think both Hamas and Netanyahu are scum.
I never get that impression during the protests we have seen in the UK.
I think there's a benefit in latency especially for military applications, Also if your data centre is not on earth is it really bound by any of Terra's judicial systems? 21st century sea steading but with data and dodgy image generation.
There are plenty of countries with sunlight and strong privacy laws.
There *may* be a latency advantage for military applications. But how big a market is that?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
A bit less true in the UK, where cities take broadly the same approach, and the climate is not radically different.
Best moment on Superstars where he fell off his bike , ripped off half his skin on his arm and side of face and insisted to the commentator it was nothing just a graze ! Can you imagine a footballer doing that now ! On YouTube if you type in keegan and superstars
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
Not even GCSE level source analysis is required to understand that a charity set up to conquer homelessness has a bit of a vested interest in saying that it is possible....
Eh? Every charity surely has a vested interest in ensuring that whatever social or economic problem that they are trying to resolve is never actually so achieved?
Of course. They want to manage problems not solve them. Preferably taking a load of cash from the govt while doing so.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
The assumption that disagreement can only be explained by a moral defect is a remarkably illiberal habit. Politics has become a competition to prove who's the better person, rather than who's got the better argument.
If your political philosophy requires you to believe your opponents are less compassionate human beings, it's probably compensating for something.
To invert it - I genuinely can’t comprehend how some PBers can be so callous about people living in Gaza, Trans people etc etc. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that is performative - I’ve no doubt they and many others think like that, and take that into account when considering politics.
Fair enough. I don't think it's performative either. I think people often genuinely reach very different conclusions from the same facts.
Where I part company is when those differences are explained as "they don't care" or "they lack compassion". That's a much stronger claim than "I think they're wrong", and one that's very hard to substantiate.
Most people aren't devoid of empathy. They simply prioritise competing harms differently or disagree about what policies will actually reduce suffering.
And this is why the left so often lose. If you explain disagreement as a deficit of compassion rather than a difference in priorities or judgement, you stop trying to persuade. You end up preaching to people who already agree with you and wondering why everyone else isn't listening.
That may be true - but the observation here was about Burnham personally, and I don’t see any evidence that it’s performative (and others have backed that up with evidence).
I don't think AB's stance on homelessness is performative either. But I can understand why some may think that it is without traducing them personally in return. I can understand why someone might see political calculation in almost any high-profile policy announcement. Disagree with that judgement if you like, but it's quite a leap from "I think you're cynical" to "you don't experience a visceral reaction to human suffering".
I suspect there are few easy votes in ending rough sleeping. It obviously requires investment in more than accommodation, as a lot of rough sleepers are substance abusers, ex-convicts or ex-military, sometimes all of the above.
But a bit like the "Broken Window" theory of crime control, it does make our streets less threatening, particularly to older people and women, so is a key part of visibly improving our town centres.
Morally, it’s to Burnham’s credit. There are zero votes in dealing with rough sleeping, whatsoever. The oddity is that he’s so bullish about it despite his mixed experience in Manchester. Most rough sleepers are suffering from one of a myriad of mental health or addiction problems and those are not easily solved merely by providing supported accommodation and support.
I imagine it's a manifestation of this meme;
Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
More politically, massively reducing rough sleeping is the sort of thing that would visibly make everyone's lives better.
And yes, it means fixing mental health provision. That's in a mess because it's intrinsically difficult to do, and not respected enough in the NHS conversation. (Was it TMay who took it seriously?) But the consequences leak out everywhere.
Here's one of the special issues about this. Guilt and powerlessness. A small proportion of the population are visibly homeless, and a good proportion of these are engaged in some sort of begging, in various ways ranging from gently to robustly vociferously. Some begging will not be homeless of course, but it's a linked problem.
An understandable reaction to all this from nice people is guilt. The in your face homeless/beggar wants some cash. But you know perfectly well that what they need (if anything) is complex, costly and resource intensive professional intervention.
What the relevant public does not have - compare with what you do if someone is injured in a car crash - is someone immediately to contact by an emergency number who will intervene on behalf of their need - an need which is such an emergency that they are sleeping in the street/shop doorway/begging for immediate cash. At least I don't. Would it be good if we did?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
To me it suggests his vacuity instead; ending rough sleeping isn't possible; its a combination of economic issues, mental health issues, and a very small number of people who embrace the lifestyle (or in some cases, can't function any other way).
Not even GCSE level source analysis is required to understand that a charity set up to conquer homelessness has a bit of a vested interest in saying that it is possible....
Eh? Every charity surely has a vested interest in ensuring that whatever social or economic problem that they are trying to resolve is never actually so achieved?
Yes. This is a scandal. We have huge, historic children's charities, household names, and lots of them all constantly asking for money while at the same time private capitalist outfits, some unregistered, are making a fortune badly caring for children with complex needs.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
All we did in COVID was sweep up the homeless and shove them in doors. They were back out again, quite rapidly.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
The assumption that disagreement can only be explained by a moral defect is a remarkably illiberal habit. Politics has become a competition to prove who's the better person, rather than who's got the better argument.
If your political philosophy requires you to believe your opponents are less compassionate human beings, it's probably compensating for something.
To invert it - I genuinely can’t comprehend how some PBers can be so callous about people living in Gaza, Trans people etc etc. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that is performative - I’ve no doubt they and many others think like that, and take that into account when considering politics.
Fair enough. I don't think it's performative either. I think people often genuinely reach very different conclusions from the same facts.
Where I part company is when those differences are explained as "they don't care" or "they lack compassion". That's a much stronger claim than "I think they're wrong", and one that's very hard to substantiate.
Most people aren't devoid of empathy. They simply prioritise competing harms differently or disagree about what policies will actually reduce suffering.
And this is why the left so often lose. If you explain disagreement as a deficit of compassion rather than a difference in priorities or judgement, you stop trying to persuade. You end up preaching to people who already agree with you and wondering why everyone else isn't listening.
That may be true - but the observation here was about Burnham personally, and I don’t see any evidence that it’s performative (and others have backed that up with evidence).
I don't think AB's stance on homelessness is performative either. But I can understand why some may think that it is without traducing them personally in return. I can understand why someone might see political calculation in almost any high-profile policy announcement. Disagree with that judgement if you like, but it's quite a leap from "I think you're cynical" to "you don't experience a visceral reaction to human suffering".
I suspect there are few easy votes in ending rough sleeping. It obviously requires investment in more than accommodation, as a lot of rough sleepers are substance abusers, ex-convicts or ex-military, sometimes all of the above.
But a bit like the "Broken Window" theory of crime control, it does make our streets less threatening, particularly to older people and women, so is a key part of visibly improving our town centres.
Morally, it’s to Burnham’s credit. There are zero votes in dealing with rough sleeping, whatsoever. The oddity is that he’s so bullish about it despite his mixed experience in Manchester. Most rough sleepers are suffering from one of a myriad of mental health or addiction problems and those are not easily solved merely by providing supported accommodation and support.
I imagine it's a manifestation of this meme;
Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
More politically, massively reducing rough sleeping is the sort of thing that would visibly make everyone's lives better.
And yes, it means fixing mental health provision. That's in a mess because it's intrinsically difficult to do, and not respected enough in the NHS conversation. (Was it TMay who took it seriously?) But the consequences leak out everywhere.
Here's one of the special issues about this. Guilt and powerlessness. A small proportion of the population are visibly homeless, and a good proportion of these are engaged in some sort of begging, in various ways ranging from gently to robustly vociferously. Some begging will not be homeless of course, but it's a linked problem.
An understandable reaction to all this from nice people is guilt. The in your face homeless/beggar wants some cash. But you know perfectly well that what they need (if anything) is complex, costly and resource intensive professional intervention.
What the relevant public does not have - compare with what you do if someone is injured in a car crash - is someone immediately to contact by an emergency number who will intervene on behalf of their need - an need which is such an emergency that they are sleeping in the street/shop doorway/begging for immediate cash. At least I don't. Would it be good if we did?
Perhaps. But as others have indicated. It's rare for anyone injured in a car crash to insist they are fine and wish to continue bleeding to death in situ.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
All we did in COVID was sweep up the homeless and shove them in doors. They were back out again, quite rapidly.
It was a largely performative action.
Let’s not do that.
Which 'homeless' are we talking about? Is it the rough sleepers, so often plagued by their addictions? Or is it the ones who cannot get council housing and are housed in temporary accomodation? Or both?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
Bollox. At worst they are realists infinitely preferable to the left hypocrisy which only see selective human suffering which fits their world view - hence the weird obsession with Gaza.
It’s weird for the UK to ally with a country committing a genocide. That’s the distinction.
Anyway, will be interesting to see how Burnham deals with that. Softly softly so far.
Not everyone thinks its a genocide. There seems little sympathy for the people of Israel murdered by Hamas, or taken hostage among the Gaza protesters. Some have genuinely campaigned about both, but most seem to have blind spot.
What’s there to campaign against? The UK government is not funding Hamas. Indeed it’s a proscribed as a terrorist organisation, and the UK armed forces have supported the IDF is tracking them down and killing them.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
All we did in COVID was sweep up the homeless and shove them in doors. They were back out again, quite rapidly.
It was a largely performative action.
Let’s not do that.
Which 'homeless' are we talking about? Is it the rough sleepers, so often plagued by their addictions? Or is it the ones who cannot get council housing and are housed in temporary accomodation? Or both?
Rough sleeping specifically implies outside or in locations not for habitation. So cars yes. Hostels no.
I think there's a benefit in latency especially for military applications, Also if your data centre is not on earth is it really bound by any of Terra's judicial systems? 21st century sea steading but with data and dodgy image generation.
There are plenty of countries with sunlight and strong privacy laws.
There *may* be a latency advantage for military applications. But how big a market is that?
Who knows on the market for this stuff? But 'Golden dome' and all the other space leveraging bits of the US 'intelligence community' might value on the fly data crunching. Also as more and more of our logistics stack become automatable quick access to some big server may be important.
No idea if it will pay for itself but i can imagine someone might want a low latency server cluster floating around.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
All of this is. It's performative.
He's trying to shore up his base.
Alternatively, he might actually care about stuff like this, particularly being a former mayor of a major (Alpha) city with its own problems with rough sleeping.
It’s a blind spot for some people on the right - they see things like Palestine protests as performative because they don’t experience the same visceral and overwhelming reaction to human suffering as others do.
Bollox. At worst they are realists infinitely preferable to the left hypocrisy which only see selective human suffering which fits their world view - hence the weird obsession with Gaza.
It’s weird for the UK to ally with a country committing a genocide. That’s the distinction.
Anyway, will be interesting to see how Burnham deals with that. Softly softly so far.
Not everyone thinks its a genocide. There seems little sympathy for the people of Israel murdered by Hamas, or taken hostage among the Gaza protesters. Some have genuinely campaigned about both, but most seem to have blind spot.
What’s there to campaign against? The UK government is not funding Hamas. Indeed it’s a proscribed as a terrorist organisation, and the UK armed forces have supported the IDF is tracking them down and killing them.
So what do the protesters want as an outcome of their protests? From the River to the Sea and all that? I see nothing in there about protecting ordinary Israelis.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
All we did in COVID was sweep up the homeless and shove them in doors. They were back out again, quite rapidly.
It was a largely performative action.
Let’s not do that.
Which 'homeless' are we talking about? Is it the rough sleepers, so often plagued by their addictions? Or is it the ones who cannot get council housing and are housed in temporary accomodation? Or both?
The rough sleepers seem to be what Burnham is talking about.
There are about 5k of them on any given day, but the actual individuals vary.
I would try - strengthen and enhance successful projects that use a flexible variety of resources to tailor help to the individuals. A feedback cycle of try things, and enhance what works. It will vary greatly from person to person. The goal would be to enhance the systems that get rough sleepers out of rough sleeping - at least reducing the frequency and length of time they do it for. The stretch goal would be to get people out of rough sleeping faster than new ones appear.
I think there's a benefit in latency especially for military applications, Also if your data centre is not on earth is it really bound by any of Terra's judicial systems? 21st century sea steading but with data and dodgy image generation.
There are plenty of countries with sunlight and strong privacy laws.
There *may* be a latency advantage for military applications. But how big a market is that?
Who knows on the market for this stuff? But 'Golden dome' and all the other space leveraging bits of the US 'intelligence community' might value on the fly data crunching. Also as more and more of our logistics stack become automatable quick access to some big server may be important.
No idea if it will pay for itself but i can imagine someone might want a low latency server cluster floating around.
It's harder for enthusiastic amateurs to take out a datacenter in geostationary orbit.
She chose Will from Surrey to be her date on a holiday to Gibraltar, but the pair did not hit it off.
Having quickly reunited, Burnham and van Heel were reportedly in a bar in Parliament 12 years later when Will walked in, having become the director of communications for the Conservative Party. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75y4q61eevo
Blimey, they all know each other. It's NU10k again, veering on the Chumocracy.
Looks like the Burnhams had a child first then got married
'By this point, van Heel had given birth to their first child, Jimmy - and it was his birth in March 2000 which Burnham has said spurred them on to get married, after years of living together.
"I think marriage is better for kids," Burnham told the Daily Telegraph in 2007, external, adding: "I'm a bit old fashioned on these matters - although I have to admit that Jimmy, my eldest son, was at our wedding so I'm only old fashioned up to a point.
"When my wife got pregnant for the first time it was a complete shock. My first thought was, 'Oh my God, we'll have to get married'.
And thus spake Sunil unto his PB disciples: "Know ye that God never married the other of His only begotten son!".
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
A bit less true in the UK, where cities take broadly the same approach, and the climate is not radically different.
Off topic, but can we actually ask your tacit knowledge Foxy.
In 2026 does NHS still use seaweed, leeches and maggots?
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
A bit less true in the UK, where cities take broadly the same approach, and the climate is not radically different.
Off topic, but can we actually ask your tacit knowledge Foxy.
In 2026 does NHS still use seaweed, leeches and maggots?
Maggots are definitely still in use - notably they need to be sterile, but they are indeed used to remove dead tissue.
I have given Supermanc's Mandelist government by and for the Bildungsburgertum a chance but I've decided that I fucking hate it. His time is up. He's got to go. Burnham out.
Former England captain and manager Kevin Keegan has died at the age of 75, seven weeks after he revealed he had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, his family have confirmed.
Burnham's high-profile pledge to end rough sleeping is interesting, as it's not a pledge that is an obvious vote winner - i.e. it's not on most people's list of priorities.
It rather suggests that a 'moral mission' will be part of Burnham's agenda - doing what's right, not just what's most popular.
And/or it's a nod to the left; this was to have been Corbyn's first action, had he won.
You would think now he has a flat at 10 Downing Street he does not need to sleep rough .
Seriously has he achieved anything on this in Manchester ? You would think being a long term mayor he should have if it’s his mission
The Twitter consensus is that rough sleeping in Manchester has doubled in the time Burnham’s been mayor.
Here's the thing: the homeless are economically rationale and very mobile.
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
A bit less true in the UK, where cities take broadly the same approach, and the climate is not radically different.
Off topic, but can we actually ask your tacit knowledge Foxy.
In 2026 does NHS still use seaweed, leeches and maggots?
Starmer, Reeves, Lammy, Kyle and Reed all gone today
Reeves, Lammy, Kyle and Reed - absolute opposite of a brain trust. Question is who replaces them. I know people who have dealt with Kyle in both roles and says pretty clueless but was onboard the AI is the future train. Guardian was reporting over the weekend Burnham not a big fan of AI.
She chose Will from Surrey to be her date on a holiday to Gibraltar, but the pair did not hit it off.
Having quickly reunited, Burnham and van Heel were reportedly in a bar in Parliament 12 years later when Will walked in, having become the director of communications for the Conservative Party. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75y4q61eevo
Blimey, they all know each other. It's NU10k again, veering on the Chumocracy.
Looks like the Burnhams had a child first then got married
'By this point, van Heel had given birth to their first child, Jimmy - and it was his birth in March 2000 which Burnham has said spurred them on to get married, after years of living together.
"I think marriage is better for kids," Burnham told the Daily Telegraph in 2007, external, adding: "I'm a bit old fashioned on these matters - although I have to admit that Jimmy, my eldest son, was at our wedding so I'm only old fashioned up to a point.
"When my wife got pregnant for the first time it was a complete shock. My first thought was, 'Oh my God, we'll have to get married'.
And thus spake Sunil unto his PB disciples: "Know ye that God never married the other of His only begotten son!".
And look how that turned out - unemployed, delinquent, started a cult, arrested and finally capital punishment. A classic delinquency-from-a-broken-home.
EDIT: Homeless and rough sleeping as well, I believe.
His Ukraine comments are weird too. The strategy of the EU et al is readily to apparent to all including VVP. Just try to keep the SMO going until 2029 and hope for a more biddable POTUS. To them, Ukraine is simply something to be expended. There is no theory of victory.
Putin can end the SMO right now by pulling back to the internationally recognised 1991 border.
Reeves rumoured to go to defence says Christopher Hope
Reeves to defence, Miliband to housing, Mahmoud to Treasury would be inexplicable. I don’t get it at all.
You’re not the only one ! Why force the COE brief onto Mahmoud when she clearly isn’t interested. I’d be shocked if Reeves gets such a high profile job and Miliband to Housing !
Because she's about the only cabinet minister with a proven record of bending civil servants to her will. If Burnham is going to genuinely move the dial, he will need above all to get the Treasury to cooperate.
Whether it works is another matter, but it at least makes sense.
Comments
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertsmithson1/p/to-a-man-with-a-rocket-everything?r=2a9ngu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Basically: orbital data centers make no sense.
RIP
Farage is sinking ready and is just not going to be next PM. Lay down to as much as your account will carry. I genuinely don’t think voters will decide that Kemi is PM material; at very best she will be the Tories’ Neil Kinnock. Mahmood isn’t going to be, and probably doesn’t want to be, PM. Carns, perhaps, has an outside chance, but a whole load of cards would have to fall in precisely the right order, much longer than that 8/1. Jenrick has burnt one bridge after another and will be lucky to continue as some sort of joke figure as Reform slowly sinks beneath the waves. Neither Rayner nor EdM has any ambition to become PM. Which takes you down to HY’s heartthrob Cleverly, who just might be the Tories’ next credible contender, provided the Conservatives find some way of cutting their loopy membership out of decisions as to who becomes their leader.
Leaked to me by Larry the cat who overheard the conversation at Andy's end.
Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
More politically, massively reducing rough sleeping is the sort of thing that would visibly make everyone's lives better.
And yes, it means fixing mental health provision. That's in a mess because it's intrinsically difficult to do, and not respected enough in the NHS conversation. (Was it TMay who took it seriously?) But the consequences leak out everywhere.
RIP
When the movie ended, it got a round of applause. (Which was a bit weird, to be honest.)
It was about 25 minutes too long. The first third had too much exposition in it, and should have treated the audience like adults. The middle third could probably simply have lost one encounter (the Sirens?). And did we really need quite so much time with Calypso?
With all that said, it was a great movie, with some fabulous performances. (And a curiously wasted Zendaya.)
And when my son and I were walking back to the car after the game, we talked about exactly the fact that the real journey was Odyssesus realizing that they hadn't been the good guys in Troy.
I was totally unbothered by Helen being black. And I thought Elliott shone in their (very minor) role as the soldier left behind to hand the horse over.
8/10 - could have been 9/10 if it had been a bit more aggressively pruned.
Mahmoud to chancellor makes sense, if you look at it from the politicians’ perspective. Routinely, ministers get captured by their officials (cf. Yes Minister), and it takes a rare senior politician to impose his or her agenda on their department, rather than the other way around. If you stand back and look at Starmer’s government, Mahmoud and Miliband are really the only ministers who have led their departments rather than the other way around (the case for Streeting is borderline). Burnham needs a Chancellor who is loyal, market friendly, and able to drive his agenda through the notoriously obstructive treasury. Since the markets might take fright at Miliband, that leaves Mahmoud as the only remaining choice.
So, for Miliband, Burnham prizes achievement on housing above achievement on energy, so deploy his other achiever into that department.
Then bring Rayner back inside but put her into health, where she will have to encourage people to stop eating, drinking, or smoking - just for the Lolz.
QED
The best way to have no homelessness is to be a small, poor town with terrible facilities. All the homeless will migrate to somewhere where begging is easier.
On the other hand, if your city is wealthy, then you will tend to suck in the homeless.
It makes it very hard to evaluate how successful policies are at ameliorating homelessness, because a policy that works will tend to suck in more homeless.
What a striker he was
It's liberal policies mean it's the homeless Capital of Canada.
Erm. It's also the only city you can survive a winter on the streets.
We'll see what the tax and spending changes are.
We were able to bring down homelessness very rapidly during COVID, so it should be at least an attackable issue.
We know that number of ex-military are amongst people on the streets so setups to help them may be a different use for "asylum hotels" say in Epping, so the far-right wallahs have an opportunity to start being socially useful citizens helping struggling ex-military re-integrate into society, rather than being thugs running around the country trying to create pogroms.
But these are human problems - you can provide help, but it won’t always work.
Any approach that says “wham! Bang! It’ll be done by Christmas” won’t work.
A flexible, but joined up, series of initiatives across housing, mental health, policing and general social work can reduce the issue. Without just locking up the “problems”.
Loved him as a player and he absolutely would have gone for more goals against Argentina. Sadly I cannot forget his role in 2004 - the last minute exit against Romania. Last few minutes, a goal to defend, and I wanted to hear tactical advice from the manager, a change of patterns, an idea. Instead all he had was 'keep believing, Scholesy'.
There was also the odd incident of him being attacked while sleeping in his car - was that ever really explained?
But a great footballer.
There *may* be a latency advantage for military applications. But how big a market is that?
An understandable reaction to all this from nice people is guilt. The in your face homeless/beggar wants some cash. But you know perfectly well that what they need (if anything) is complex, costly and resource intensive professional intervention.
What the relevant public does not have - compare with what you do if someone is injured in a car crash - is someone immediately to contact by an emergency number who will intervene on behalf of their need - an need which is such an emergency that they are sleeping in the street/shop doorway/begging for immediate cash. At least I don't. Would it be good if we did?
It was a largely performative action.
Let’s not do that.
But as others have indicated. It's rare for anyone injured in a car crash to insist they are fine and wish to continue bleeding to death in situ.
So cars yes. Hostels no.
No idea if it will pay for itself but i can imagine someone might want a low latency server cluster floating around.
There are about 5k of them on any given day, but the actual individuals vary.
I would try - strengthen and enhance successful projects that use a flexible variety of resources to tailor help to the individuals. A feedback cycle of try things, and enhance what works. It will vary greatly from person to person. The goal would be to enhance the systems that get rough sleepers out of rough sleeping - at least reducing the frequency and length of time they do it for. The stretch goal would be to get people out of rough sleeping faster than new ones appear.
In 2026 does NHS still use seaweed, leeches and maggots?
Former England captain and manager Kevin Keegan has died at the age of 75, seven weeks after he revealed he had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, his family have confirmed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c2lyl82n2e2o
Grim has been super busy over the past few days taking famous people.
EDIT: Homeless and rough sleeping as well, I believe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irVNGjRFZGk
(oh, everybody is in it. Even
BansheeGambit and Namor)If Burnham is going to genuinely move the dial, he will need above all to get the Treasury to cooperate.
Whether it works is another matter, but it at least makes sense.