Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick Burnham's cabinet so far is incredibly northern in terms of seats. Mahmood seems to be the most southern - she's a Birmingham MP - and nobody from London, or indeed south of Birmingham so far. But several southern MPs now waiting inside No 10.
All the southerners failed the key interview question about chips, gravy and curry sauce?
The candidates were asked if they did their weekly shopping in Booths. If yes, cabinet post. If no, the sack.
Yvette now has a massive job on her hands. Not only get nhs off the top two or three of voter concern thanks to waiting lists and 8am GP calls on hold but also now deliver £18billion social care revolution.
Looks on paper like a demotion from Foreign but actually the new administration will mainly stand or fall on what she does...
One advantage of Streeting is that he seems like the sort of guy who'll be more interested in the whizzy and new like drones, and will hold little nostalgia for tanks and the like.
Yvette now has a massive job on her hands. Not only get nhs off the top two or three of voter concern thanks to waiting lists and 8am GP calls on hold but also now deliver £18billion social care revolution.
Looks on paper like a demotion from Foreign but actually the new administration will mainly stand or fall on what she does...
Doesn't have the best record of actually getting stuf done.
What time do we reckon the final Cabinet appointment will be made?
11.59...just not sure which day.
I guess he could just decide to have a smaller Cabinet. Pitt the Younger only had 11 members of his Cabinet, besides himself, in his first Ministry, and 12 in his second.
The number of ministers just seems to grow and grow.
The Guardian say that it's all over, and gov.uk now list 27 ministers who will attend Cabinet, along with the PM.
Wikipedia has 22 (including the PM) in Thatcher's first Cabinet. Blair had 25 attending Cabinet in his first ministry. So the rate of increase does seem to be slowing.
It might stabilise at 32, or something absurd like that.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. He will attend Cabinet.
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office. He will attend Cabinet.
Sir Alan Campbell MP will remain as Leader of the House of Commons. Baroness Smith of Basildon remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook MP will remain as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He will attend Cabinet.
Mr Memory @AmIRightSir · 29m Angela Eagle is the only minister in the government who was also a minister in the incoming Labour government at its start in 1997
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. He will attend Cabinet.
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office. He will attend Cabinet.
Sir Alan Campbell MP will remain as Leader of the House of Commons. Baroness Smith of Basildon remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook MP will remain as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He will attend Cabinet.
From The Guardian
Assume Hamish Falconer is already considering his position?
David Gauke @DavidGauke · 43m There is a recent and not very reassuring precedent of a new government starting off by launching an expensive energy support package.
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick Burnham's cabinet so far is incredibly northern in terms of seats. Mahmood seems to be the most southern - she's a Birmingham MP - and nobody from London, or indeed south of Birmingham so far. But several southern MPs now waiting inside No 10.
All the southerners failed the key interview question about chips, gravy and curry sauce?
The candidates were asked if they did their weekly shopping in Booths. If yes, cabinet post. If no, the sack.
What's Booths? Is that an upmarket Morrisons?
Burnham is having you straight out of the job.
Though technically it’s more a Lancashire thing than a northern one. You won’t find one in Yorkshire or Northumberland.
You won't find one in the Manchester Merseyside area either. Very much Lancs Cumbria.
I think there's one in Salford Quays.
The mediacity one closed a while back from memory
It did, leaving me no option but to drive to Barrowford for the nearest one. Burnham must condemn.
What time do we reckon the final Cabinet appointment will be made?
11.59...just not sure which day.
I guess he could just decide to have a smaller Cabinet. Pitt the Younger only had 11 members of his Cabinet, besides himself, in his first Ministry, and 12 in his second.
The number of ministers just seems to grow and grow.
The Guardian say that it's all over, and gov.uk now list 27 ministers who will attend Cabinet, along with the PM.
Wikipedia has 22 (including the PM) in Thatcher's first Cabinet. Blair had 25 attending Cabinet in his first ministry. So the rate of increase does seem to be slowing.
It might stabilise at 32, or something absurd like that.
The decision by the Russian Ministry of Finance to suspend bond sales was ostensibly done to stabilise the bond market, but the yield on Russian 10-year bonds has reached a new high (of 16.82%).
Yvette now has a massive job on her hands. Not only get nhs off the top two or three of voter concern thanks to waiting lists and 8am GP calls on hold but also now deliver £18billion social care revolution.
Looks on paper like a demotion from Foreign but actually the new administration will mainly stand or fall on what she does...
Doesn't have the best record of actually getting stuf done.
Mr Memory @AmIRightSir · 2m Stephen Kinnock is the third person to be a Cabinet Minister who had a parent who was Leader of the Labour Party - following Malcolm MacDonald and Margaret Jay
Not even close to a full moon but some are baying at it as night draws in:
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage · 35m What we witnessed today was deeply troubling to anyone who cares about our democracy.
Make no mistake, this really is a coup.
There must be a general election immediately.
I know it's the branding, but does he really have to be so damn dramatic? Call it a disgrace that we switch PMs between elections, say it shouldn't be common despite being very common, sure, call for a GE - that's standard practice - but an undemocratic coup?
Get a bloody grip, Nigel. Why are he and Reform so fragile, they say they are strong and yet they yap like scared chihuahuas about everything.
Not even close to a full moon but some are baying at it as night draws in:
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage · 35m What we witnessed today was deeply troubling to anyone who cares about our democracy.
Make no mistake, this really is a coup.
There must be a general election immediately.
Jan 6th was just a peaceful protest. A majority of MPs choosing a different PM is a coup.
There not being outrage and violence at a handover of power is probably upsetting for him. His fellow travellers in Restore (they are more racist, but the biggest difference is just not liking Farage personally), along with him, often seem upset that we are not, in fact, in the middle of a civil uprising.
Most candidates and elected people for Reform are pretty normal people, the same kinds of people who stand for other parties. Yet the top bods all talk like revolutionaries in some kind of pretense.
David Gauke @DavidGauke · 43m There is a recent and not very reassuring precedent of a new government starting off by launching an expensive energy support package.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. He will attend Cabinet.
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office. He will attend Cabinet.
Sir Alan Campbell MP will remain as Leader of the House of Commons. Baroness Smith of Basildon remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook MP will remain as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He will attend Cabinet.
From The Guardian
Assume Hamish Falconer is already considering his position?
There are going to be some very tired people round the table in the morning.
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
There are going to be some very tired people round the table in the morning.
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
We know that Burnham wanted another 2 months before taking over as PM because he wasn't prepared.
Not even close to a full moon but some are baying at it as night draws in:
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage · 35m What we witnessed today was deeply troubling to anyone who cares about our democracy.
Make no mistake, this really is a coup.
There must be a general election immediately.
What did he say when Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak hasdthe same thing?
The Daily T podcast were wibbling about that in ever decreasing circles for quite some time today. I have not bothered to look up the previous occasions.
They really do need to find something useful to say.
There are going to be some very tired people round the table in the morning.
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
We know that Burnham wanted another 2 months before taking over as PM because he wasn't prepared.
I think that could potentially be a big thing. He needs to get the first period right, and avoid any major pratfalls.
One suggested outline I have seen suggests:
1 - Some possibly modest, but eye-catching, measures now. 2 - September Mini Budget. 3 - Crucially important conference speech.
And self-definition rather than press-definition is very important, or it will not be a political hinge-point. Much of the press will be focused on making his job impossible by destruction of the man himself, regardless of consequence.
Mrs Burnham seems to be impressively bluntly spoken.
I do hope that the conversation of the doorstep of Number 10 is something like:
"Normally they stop here and chat for a couple of minutes, and the press get the lip readers in." "Do they normally get anything useful?" "No idea." "OK, so now now we've created a mini job for the lip readers." "Shall we talk in Dutch for a bit to make it more complicated?" "Nah. Let's go in, I need a cuppa."
"The top topic of conversation at that drinks party tonight... we can't believe Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has been replaced by a bloke." The Times' Patrick Maguire on the conversations amongst "Labour's new dispossessed" after Andy Burnham announced his Cabinet.
There are going to be some very tired people round the table in the morning.
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
I really worry about Wes Streeting in Defence too.
That's a very serious and important role and his judgement, seriousness and expertise is way off for it, IMHO.
There are going to be some very tired people round the table in the morning.
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
We know that Burnham wanted another 2 months before taking over as PM because he wasn't prepared.
Then Andy Burnham should have pushed for a Labour leadership contest over the summer rather than a very quick Coronation after entering Parliament. But then again that would have forced him into laying out his policy store in far more detail than he wanted to before entering No10 or its seems over the next few months now he has become PM. This has echoes of Starmer's strategy as Labour leader in the run up to the 2024 GE, all the focus was about getting him into No10 and not enough attention was paid to the policy details of what he was going to do when he got there.
Making John Healey Chancellor seems a very sensible choice which should reassure the markets but I think making Ed Milliband Foreign Secretary will prove to be a mistake, he is no William Hague or David Cameron which matters right now with Trump in the White House. I also think bringing Angela Rayner and Louise Haigh back into Cabinet positions so quickly looks awful, especially making Rayner Secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
Andy Burnham made another mistake giving Wes Streeting the Defence brief instead of leaving Dan Jarvis in the position or bringing back Al Carns with the expertise they both bring to the role with their military backgrounds and to avoid yet more disruption in the Ministry of Defence right now. Surely it would again have been better to reappoint him as Minister for Health to maintain some continuity in that brief as he has done by keeping Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office while he settles into No10 and takes the summer to set out his policy stall.
The optics of seeing Andy Burnham greeting and hugging some of his new key Cabinet appointments in No10 as Keir Starmer was openly gathered with family, friends and some of his now ousted former Cabinet colleagues and their aides commiserating in a pub a few miles away were fascinating. Andy Burnham said that that politicians have not been good enough and that we need to be better and we will be, but I am not convinced his strategy of taking a more casual approach to his premiership by becoming a dressed down PM who only plans to work part time out of No10 is either practical considering the serious domestic and foreign issues the UK faces or if its going to make him the 'local' man of the people he thinks the country is looking for right now.
I think that the public want a serious man or woman in No10 for serious times who see this is as a full time job and they want them to have well prepared serious stress tested policies ready to role out and sell rather than an ideological policy list made up on the back of a fag packet that will only keep their own tribal political base happy. A Labour leadership contest could have tested Andy Burnham's approach to the job of PM in the court of public opinion up against Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage & Co...
Not even close to a full moon but some are baying at it as night draws in:
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage · 35m What we witnessed today was deeply troubling to anyone who cares about our democracy.
Make no mistake, this really is a coup.
There must be a general election immediately.
Make no mistake, we're witnessing someone wholly ignorant of the British constitution.
Farage might have half a point if Burnham were planning to directly contradict the 2024 manifesto but sfaict he is committed to following it, for instance he has already mentioned taxation and the triple lock, although it relies on convention rather than legality.
But I'm not clutching my pearls. It is part of opposition parties' raisons d'etre to call for new elections. It's what they do.
Andy Burnham has appointed Kanishka Narayan as the UK's first ever Minister for AI
His background, he is basically Labour's Rishi Sunak.
Ah yes, he is the one who went to Eton. Labour's first since Tam Dalyell perhaps? The Times recently ran a hit piece on his covering it up in his Who's Who entry but it is proudly stated on his own website, along with an aspiration to increase opportunities. https://www.kanishkanarayan.com/about
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick Burnham's cabinet so far is incredibly northern in terms of seats. Mahmood seems to be the most southern - she's a Birmingham MP - and nobody from London, or indeed south of Birmingham so far. But several southern MPs now waiting inside No 10.
Streeting is obviously from London so he’s talking nonsense again
Andy Burnham will remove VAT from domestic electricity bills in October, in his first major policy decision as prime minister. The rate of VAT applied to household electricity will be cut from 5% to 0%, starting on 1 October.
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
Colour me shocked again. He's getting some genuine reward for putting his head up and quitting, even if he was so openly gunning for Starmer he really had no choice.
Wrong reward for him though.
Huge mistake.
He's a health, housing, regional development type guy imho not tanks.
Streeting moves from one massive bureaucracy to another. How will be do? His NHS experience is mixed. On the one hand he's overseen a modest but measurable improvement in the service. The NHS in England is going in the right direction albeit slowly. On the other hand he's made a lot of mistakes and those mistakes are costly, not just in money terms.
He was probably sold the appointment on its coming prominence. But when was the last defence secretary that made anything of it in terms of subsequent promotion? Streeting is essentially waiting for Burnham to fail, and defence is as close to a dead end (other than NI, which he wouldn’t have taken) as Burnham can find while keeping him inside the tent.
I wonder which job Reeves was offered, but refused?
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick Burnham's cabinet so far is incredibly northern in terms of seats. Mahmood seems to be the most southern - she's a Birmingham MP - and nobody from London, or indeed south of Birmingham so far. But several southern MPs now waiting inside No 10.
Streeting is obviously from London so he’s talking nonsense again
"so far" was the important part of the tweet...when he tweeted that Wes hadn't been appointed to anything.
What we haven't seen is any Blairist rebrands from the Lords such as David Miliband or Ed Balls as was speculated on. I do wonder how well Burnham actually knows a lot of the current Labour party MPs, he has been away for a decade after all. My guess is that Louise Haigh has been highly influential in a lot of these appointments.
Still haven't got over Healey. We can only hope that he surprises on the upside but as I have pointed out before his record as Defence Secretary was considerably less than stellar doing next to nothing to address the absolute shambles that he inherited. I am hopeful that Streeting will do better.
Andy Burnham will remove VAT from domestic electricity bills in October, in his first major policy decision as prime minister. The rate of VAT applied to household electricity will be cut from 5% to 0%, starting on 1 October.
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
Andy Burnham will remove VAT from domestic electricity bills in October, in his first major policy decision as prime minister. The rate of VAT applied to household electricity will be cut from 5% to 0%, starting on 1 October.
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
If it's costing £850m this financial year (ie in a 6 month period) then it'll cost about £1.5bn in a full year EVERY YEAR.
So scrapping the Digital ID cost of £600m per year clearly will not fund it in full.
And the Digital ID cost would not have continued in perpetuity. If the VAT cut is permanent, scrapping Digital ID won't fund any of it in Year 4 onwards.
Are people really going to fall for this? It's primary school maths.
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Throwing Starmer loyalists under the bus is very petty and Johnsonian. The tribal Lucy Powell in Education demonstrates Burnham is not the genius he believes he is.
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Throwing Starmer loyalists under the bus is very petty and Johnsonian. The tribal Lucy Powell in Education demonstrates Burnham is not the genius he believes he is.
The political reform elements of Burnham’s agenda will be the most challenging to push forward, given all the vested interests, and I suspect an under appreciated aspect of the new PM’s team selection was picking people who are up for it.
In particular, given the devolution agenda, has he picked MPs with prior local government backgrounds?
BBC: "The UK's new Chancellor John Healey says cutting VAT from domestic electricity bills will be funded from cancelling the Digital ID programme."
So the BBC has swallowed it in full.
BBC Licence Fee Revenue £3.8bn. BBC employs 20,000 people - not a typo, yes TWENTY THOUSAND.
And there's not a single person in the building there who is numerate enough to spot what a child at Primary School should be able to work out in a couple of minutes.
Colour me shocked again. He's getting some genuine reward for putting his head up and quitting, even if he was so openly gunning for Starmer he really had no choice.
Wrong reward for him though.
Huge mistake.
He's a health, housing, regional development type guy imho not tanks.
Streeting moves from one massive bureaucracy to another. How will be do? His NHS experience is mixed. On the one hand he's overseen a modest but measurable improvement in the service. The NHS in England is going in the right direction albeit slowly. On the other hand he's made a lot of mistakes and those mistakes are costly, not just in money terms.
He was probably sold the appointment on its coming prominence. But when was the last defence secretary that made anything of it in terms of subsequent promotion? Streeting is essentially waiting for Burnham to fail, and defence is as close to a dead end (other than NI, which he wouldn’t have taken) as Burnham can find while keeping him inside the tent.
I wonder which job Reeves was offered, but refused?
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Throwing Starmer loyalists under the bus is very petty and Johnsonian. The tribal Lucy Powell in Education demonstrates Burnham is not the genius he believes he is.
The political reform elements of Burnham’s agenda will be the most challenging to push forward, given all the vested interests, and I suspect an under appreciated aspect of the new PM’s team selection was picking people who are up for it.
In particular, given the devolution agenda, has he picked MPs with prior local government backgrounds?
Does he care? He's been able to massage his own ego and a that of a few mates. The country has nothing to do with it.
Yvette now has a massive job on her hands. Not only get nhs off the top two or three of voter concern thanks to waiting lists and 8am GP calls on hold but also now deliver £18billion social care revolution.
Looks on paper like a demotion from Foreign but actually the new administration will mainly stand or fall on what she does...
Doesn't have the best record of actually getting stuf done.
Errr... HIPS! Hello???
Indeed. All of those people who gave up jobs and retrained as HIPS assessors at a not insubstantial cost only for it to, go nowhere.
Andy Burnham will remove VAT from domestic electricity bills in October, in his first major policy decision as prime minister. The rate of VAT applied to household electricity will be cut from 5% to 0%, starting on 1 October.
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
If it's costing £850m this financial year (ie in a 6 month period) then it'll cost about £1.5bn in a full year EVERY YEAR.
So scrapping the Digital ID cost of £600m per year clearly will not fund it in full.
And the Digital ID cost would not have continued in perpetuity. If the VAT cut is permanent, scrapping Digital ID won't fund any of it in Year 4 onwards.
Are people really going to fall for this? It's primary school maths.
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Throwing Starmer loyalists under the bus is very petty and Johnsonian. The tribal Lucy Powell in Education demonstrates Burnham is not the genius he believes he is.
The political reform elements of Burnham’s agenda will be the most challenging to push forward, given all the vested interests, and I suspect an under appreciated aspect of the new PM’s team selection was picking people who are up for it.
In particular, given the devolution agenda, has he picked MPs with prior local government backgrounds?
Does he care? He's been able to massage his own ego and a that of a few mates. The country has nothing to do with it.
GE soon.
Unduly negative and cynical. And if you think the current lot are bad, do take a good long look at the alternatives.
Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Emma Reynolds Angela Eagle is in as DEFRA
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
Departed
Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
? is out as Health Secretary
? is out as First Secretary Of State
? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Remains
Bridget Phillipson remains as Minister for Women and Equalities
Douglas Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Scotland
Heidi Alexander remains as Secretary of State for Transport
Lisa Nandy remains as Culture Secretary (department renamed as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Pat McFadden remains as Work and Pensions Secretary
Shabhana Mahmood remains as Home Secretary
Alan Campbell remains as Leader of the House of Commons.
Angela Smith remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook remains as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
All slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
Healy appointment inspired in terms of markets and defence spending Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
Throwing Starmer loyalists under the bus is very petty and Johnsonian. The tribal Lucy Powell in Education demonstrates Burnham is not the genius he believes he is.
The political reform elements of Burnham’s agenda will be the most challenging to push forward, given all the vested interests, and I suspect an under appreciated aspect of the new PM’s team selection was picking people who are up for it.
In particular, given the devolution agenda, has he picked MPs with prior local government backgrounds?
Does he care? He's been able to massage his own ego and a that of a few mates. The country has nothing to do with it.
GE soon.
Unduly negative and cynical. And if you think the current lot are bad, do take a good long look at the alternatives.
What we haven't seen is any Blairist rebrands from the Lords such as David Miliband or Ed Balls as was speculated on. I do wonder how well Burnham actually knows a lot of the current Labour party MPs, he has been away for a decade after all. My guess is that Louise Haigh has been highly influential in a lot of these appointments.
Still haven't got over Healey. We can only hope that he surprises on the upside but as I have pointed out before his record as Defence Secretary was considerably less than stellar doing next to nothing to address the absolute shambles that he inherited. I am hopeful that Streeting will do better.
What we haven't seen is any Blairist rebrands from the Lords such as David Miliband or Ed Balls as was speculated on. I do wonder how well Burnham actually knows a lot of the current Labour party MPs, he has been away for a decade after all. My guess is that Louise Haigh has been highly influential in a lot of these appointments.
Still haven't got over Healey. We can only hope that he surprises on the upside but as I have pointed out before his record as Defence Secretary was considerably less than stellar doing next to nothing to address the absolute shambles that he inherited. I am hopeful that Streeting will do better.
Maybe most of the speculation was just bollocks.
Yes, those clutching their pearls at the Burnham leaks in the Daily Mail, Sun and Telegraph seem to be lapping up fresh fantasies of horror. After getting so much wrong you would think that they might want to pipe down for a bit.
Have the cabinet been chosen based on their constituencies proximity to the new No 10 north? If he's good to his word it seems unlikely Chequers, Chevening and Dorneywood are going to see many visitors.
Mad Nad doesn't have a sparkling record of political analysis, and yet again, isn’t reading the room. Unike Starmer, Burnham may even get a bit of a honeymoon. The appointment of Healey is a well finessed choice, balancing markets and internal Labour politics.
Hopefully his experience as a junior Treasury minister will give him the chance to break the failed system.
I mean, I'm not holding my breath, but the hope is the honeymoon.
You beat me to it. Either that or she saw pictures of them on Insta and thought both cities would make good backdrops for some social media shots, and after all they have an FBI jet sitting there doing nothing.
Andy Burnham will remove VAT from domestic electricity bills in October, in his first major policy decision as prime minister. The rate of VAT applied to household electricity will be cut from 5% to 0%, starting on 1 October.
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
If it's costing £850m this financial year (ie in a 6 month period) then it'll cost about £1.5bn in a full year EVERY YEAR.
So scrapping the Digital ID cost of £600m per year clearly will not fund it in full.
And the Digital ID cost would not have continued in perpetuity. If the VAT cut is permanent, scrapping Digital ID won't fund any of it in Year 4 onwards.
Are people really going to fall for this? It's primary school maths.
These are the wrong unfunded tax cuts, Gromit!
Making energy cheaper should be done by investing in the grid, subsidising home efficiency and cheaper electricity generation, not by subsidising consumption. If you're going to do the latter it should be very limited and targeted.
BBC: "The UK's new Chancellor John Healey says cutting VAT from domestic electricity bills will be funded from cancelling the Digital ID programme."
So the BBC has swallowed it in full.
BBC Licence Fee Revenue £3.8bn. BBC employs 20,000 people - not a typo, yes TWENTY THOUSAND.
And there's not a single person in the building there who is numerate enough to spot what a child at Primary School should be able to work out in a couple of minutes.
It was reported as being fully funded in the current year. There will, of course, be a budget in the autumn, which will be the new Chancellor's first opportunity to make the books balance.
What we haven't seen is any Blairist rebrands from the Lords such as David Miliband or Ed Balls as was speculated on. I do wonder how well Burnham actually knows a lot of the current Labour party MPs, he has been away for a decade after all. My guess is that Louise Haigh has been highly influential in a lot of these appointments.
Still haven't got over Healey. We can only hope that he surprises on the upside but as I have pointed out before his record as Defence Secretary was considerably less than stellar doing next to nothing to address the absolute shambles that he inherited. I am hopeful that Streeting will do better.
Maybe most of the speculation was just bollocks.
Yes, those clutching their pearls at the Burnham leaks in the Daily Mail, Sun and Telegraph seem to be lapping up fresh fantasies of horror. After getting so much wrong you would think that they might want to pipe down for a bit.
My guess is that Miliband and Mahmood - or more likely their 'allies' - had been briefing against each other to journalists for a while, which maybe tipped Burnham into picking neither of them.
BBC: "The UK's new Chancellor John Healey says cutting VAT from domestic electricity bills will be funded from cancelling the Digital ID programme."
So the BBC has swallowed it in full.
BBC Licence Fee Revenue £3.8bn. BBC employs 20,000 people - not a typo, yes TWENTY THOUSAND.
And there's not a single person in the building there who is numerate enough to spot what a child at Primary School should be able to work out in a couple of minutes.
It was reported as being fully funded in the current year. There will, of course, be a budget in the autumn, which will be the new Chancellor's first opportunity to make the books balance.
I’m not sure even that is true. Were they really planning to spend £850m on Digital ID by next March? I doubt it - it hadn’t even started. Had the OBR forecast £850m on Digital ID this year? Sorry but this is completely half baked and is going to make Burnham look very silly when the IFS tells the media it doesn’t stack up.
Comments
Poor NI
Back again.
Looks on paper like a demotion from Foreign but actually the new administration will mainly stand or fall on what she does...
Wikipedia has 22 (including the PM) in Thatcher's first Cabinet. Blair had 25 attending Cabinet in his first ministry. So the rate of increase does seem to be slowing.
It might stabilise at 32, or something absurd like that.
Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office. He will attend Cabinet.
Sir Alan Campbell MP will remain as Leader of the House of Commons. Baroness Smith of Basildon remains as Leader of the House of Lords.
Matthew Pennycook MP will remain as a minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He will attend Cabinet.
From The Guardian
@AmIRightSir
·
29m
Angela Eagle is the only minister in the government who was also a minister in the incoming Labour government at its start in 1997
Ah, Ellie, that makes more sense.
Moved
- Alex Norris is in as Justice Secretary
- Angela Rayner is in as Housing Secretary
- Anneliese Midgeley is in as Chief Whip
- Chris Bryant is in as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
- Ed Miliband is in as Foreign Secretary
- Ellie Reeves is in as Attorney General
- Emma Reynolds is in as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
-
- Hamish Falconer is a minister across both the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office.
- Kanishka Narayan will be a minister of state across the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
- Jonathan Reynolds is in as Business Secretary aka Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
- Miatta Fahnbulleh is in as Energy and Net Zero Secretary
- Louise Haigh is in as First Secretary of State
- Lucy Powell is in as Education Secretary
- Stephen Kinnock is in as Secretary of State for Wales
- Wes Streeting is in as Defence Secretary
- Yvette Cooper is in as Health Secretary
DepartedEmma ReynoldsAngela Eagle is in as DEFRA- Bridget Phillipson is out as Education Secretary
- Darren Jones is out as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- David Lammy is out as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM
- Ed Miliband is out as Energy Secretary
- Hilary Benn is out as Northern Ireland Secretary
- Jenny Chapman is out as international development minister
- Jo Stevens is out as Wales Secretary
- Jonathan Reynolds is out as Chief Whip
- Liz Kendall is out as Technology Secretary
- Miatta Fahnbulleh is out as Housing Minister
- Nick Thomas-Symonds is out as paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister
- Peter Kyle is out as Business Secretary
- Rachel Reeves is out as Chancellor
- Richard Hermer is out as Attorney General
- Steve Reed is out as Housing Secretary
- Yvette Cooper is out as Foreign Secretary
- ? is out as Health Secretary
- ? is out as First Secretary Of State
- ? is out as DSIT (department merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
RemainsAll slots now filled. Go home, folks, go home.
David Gauke
@DavidGauke
·
43m
There is a recent and not very reassuring precedent of a new government starting off by launching an expensive energy support package.
https://x.com/DavidGauke/status/2079324140180209737
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage
·
35m
What we witnessed today was deeply troubling to anyone who cares about our democracy.
Make no mistake, this really is a coup.
There must be a general election immediately.
Careful what you wish for...
Anyway, why are we listening to Farage, he's no longer an MP?
Mr Memory
@AmIRightSir
·
2m
Stephen Kinnock is the third person to be a Cabinet Minister who had a parent who was Leader of the Labour Party - following Malcolm MacDonald and Margaret Jay
https://x.com/AmIRightSir/status/2079340120478453831
Get a bloody grip, Nigel. Why are he and Reform so fragile, they say they are strong and yet they yap like scared chihuahuas about everything.
Most candidates and elected people for Reform are pretty normal people, the same kinds of people who stand for other parties. Yet the top bods all talk like revolutionaries in some kind of pretense.
Seriously though, all the noises suggest someone is going to have to be taxed here. These bills won't pay themselves.
There's one for you, nineteen for me?
It will be interesting when the memoirs are written so we can find out why it took so long for this to all play out.
There are some appointments that make sense. Healey shouldn't spook the markets too much. Keeping Mahmood in place is reasonable
But some are just bad. Powell isn't up to the job. I am not sure Rayner should be back this soon. I have never rated Nandy. Bryant is over promoted. Norris seems lacking experience for such a big job.
The Daily T podcast were wibbling about that in ever decreasing circles for quite some time today. I have not bothered to look up the previous occasions.
They really do need to find something useful to say.
One suggested outline I have seen suggests:
1 - Some possibly modest, but eye-catching, measures now.
2 - September Mini Budget.
3 - Crucially important conference speech.
And self-definition rather than press-definition is very important, or it will not be a political hinge-point. Much of the press will be focused on making his job impossible by destruction of the man himself, regardless of consequence.
Mrs Burnham seems to be impressively bluntly spoken.
I do hope that the conversation of the doorstep of Number 10 is something like:
"Normally they stop here and chat for a couple of minutes, and the press get the lip readers in."
"Do they normally get anything useful?"
"No idea."
"OK, so now now we've created a mini job for the lip readers."
"Shall we talk in Dutch for a bit to make it more complicated?"
"Nah. Let's go in, I need a cuppa."
His background, he is basically Labour's Rishi Sunak.
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/2079322340979015825?s=20
Shakes head.
That's a very serious and important role and his judgement, seriousness and expertise is way off for it, IMHO.
FBI Director Patel is planning to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg in October.
https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/2079311017293631707
https://www.dailymail.com/columnists/article-15991791/NADINE-DORRIES-witnessed-hand-happens-new-Prime-Ministers-Andy-Burnham.html
So there we have it. Place your bets accordingly.
Computer-controlled energy deployment now dictates races – it turns out drivers don’t like Skynet controlling their cars
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/20/f1-algorithm-driver-fury-engines-spa-francorchamps
For PB's Formula One fans.
Making John Healey Chancellor seems a very sensible choice which should reassure the markets but I think making Ed Milliband Foreign Secretary will prove to be a mistake, he is no William Hague or David Cameron which matters right now with Trump in the White House. I also think bringing Angela Rayner and Louise Haigh back into Cabinet positions so quickly looks awful, especially making Rayner Secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.
Andy Burnham made another mistake giving Wes Streeting the Defence brief instead of leaving Dan Jarvis in the position or bringing back Al Carns with the expertise they both bring to the role with their military backgrounds and to avoid yet more disruption in the Ministry of Defence right now. Surely it would again have been better to reappoint him as Minister for Health to maintain some continuity in that brief as he has done by keeping Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office while he settles into No10 and takes the summer to set out his policy stall.
The optics of seeing Andy Burnham greeting and hugging some of his new key Cabinet appointments in No10 as Keir Starmer was openly gathered with family, friends and some of his now ousted former Cabinet colleagues and their aides commiserating in a pub a few miles away were fascinating. Andy Burnham said that that politicians have not been good enough and that we need to be better and we will be, but I am not convinced his strategy of taking a more casual approach to his premiership by becoming a dressed down PM who only plans to work part time out of No10 is either practical considering the serious domestic and foreign issues the UK faces or if its going to make him the 'local' man of the people he thinks the country is looking for right now.
I think that the public want a serious man or woman in No10 for serious times who see this is as a full time job and they want them to have well prepared serious stress tested policies ready to role out and sell rather than an ideological policy list made up on the back of a fag packet that will only keep their own tribal political base happy. A Labour leadership contest could have tested Andy Burnham's approach to the job of PM in the court of public opinion up against Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage & Co...
But I'm not clutching my pearls. It is part of opposition parties' raisons d'etre to call for new elections. It's what they do.
... Nigel Lawson was a Thatcher acolyte and we are still paying for the ruinous cost of his terrible decisions
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/tory-sold-britains-greatest-assets-take-back-control-4634942?utm_campaign=PNIEVq7l5sjekqh&ito=gifted_article&data-target=gifted_article&utm_source=XJPLeh5koSHChZEU
Gift link so no paywall.
Note this is one of a series of opinion pieces: Who broke Britain?
https://www.kanishkanarayan.com/about
Eton & Oxford PPE. Labour's David Cameron?
Catalan departed Manchester City after ten years
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/guardiola-next-club-return-italy-talks-b1290704.html
Pep tapped up by Italy for the national team.
Streeting will weed out waste in Defence as he did in NHS
Ed Miliband, a Jew whose parents fled fascism who will fight Netanyahu and Zionism globally is inspired.
All positives
Biggest negattive, replacing the excellent Phillipson with Lucy fecking Powell
The government says the announcement was estimated to cost £850m this financial year and would be funded by savings from the cancellation of the Digital ID programme, which was going to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.
I wonder which job Reeves was offered, but refused?
Still haven't got over Healey. We can only hope that he surprises on the upside but as I have pointed out before his record as Defence Secretary was considerably less than stellar doing next to nothing to address the absolute shambles that he inherited. I am hopeful that Streeting will do better.
So scrapping the Digital ID cost of £600m per year clearly will not fund it in full.
And the Digital ID cost would not have continued in perpetuity. If the VAT cut is permanent, scrapping Digital ID won't fund any of it in Year 4 onwards.
Are people really going to fall for this? It's primary school maths.
And no new financial forecast is being issued.
They're just expecting the media to swallow it because of course nobody in the media can do even basic arithmetic.
It all means they'll make a good first impression with the public - that's the objective.
Then at the Budget in the autumn - which will have to pass the OBR - the big tax rises will be announced.
A first morning of relief for Starmer in two years....
In particular, given the devolution agenda, has he picked MPs with prior local government backgrounds?
So the BBC has swallowed it in full.
BBC Licence Fee Revenue £3.8bn. BBC employs 20,000 people - not a typo, yes TWENTY THOUSAND.
And there's not a single person in the building there who is numerate enough to spot what a child at Primary School should be able to work out in a couple of minutes.
GE soon.
Not a great legacy.
If he's good to his word it seems unlikely Chequers, Chevening and Dorneywood are going to see many visitors.
Hopefully his experience as a junior Treasury minister will give him the chance to break the failed system.
I mean, I'm not holding my breath, but the hope is the honeymoon.
I do hope that Farage’s request for £5m is confirms as that means his £5m is a payment so subject to £3m of rather overdue tax
On the wider point, Lord Chancellor (a different post) used to be a law officer but now isn't.
I agree with Mr. L, who pointed out funding something permanently by scrapping a temporary expenditure does not make sense.
On the other hand, I'm dead against the digital ID bullshit so I'm certainly not criticising that being axed.
There will, of course, be a budget in the autumn, which will be the new Chancellor's first opportunity to make the books balance.
Claiming if there was an election today the Lib Dem’s would be the official opposition.
Roundly being mocked by both Ed Balls and Susannah Reid.
Embarrassing.
Got to say it wouldn’t be my first choice of tax cut - it helps people with EVs who can charge at home far more than anyone else
Were they really planning to spend £850m on Digital ID by next March? I doubt it - it hadn’t even started.
Had the OBR forecast £850m on Digital ID this year?
Sorry but this is completely half baked and is going to make Burnham look very silly when the IFS tells the media it doesn’t stack up.