Andy Burnham’s government has a Northern Soul – politicalbetting.com
Andy Burnham’s government has a Northern Soul – politicalbetting.com
This is certainly a more Northern cabinet from @andyburnham. @BethRigby @Steven_Swinford @SamCoatesSky @annemcelvoy @faisalislam pic.twitter.com/P7DZLewo7s
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Lab 28% (+8)
Reform 28% (-)
Con 18% (+1)
Lib Dem 10% (-2)
Green 10% (-3)
SNP 3% (-)
Other 2% (-2)
Plaid 1% (-)
Will they reverse the HS2 cancellation?
Or even better build new motorways in the North?
"its shift".
Blooming autocorrect.
Also those PBers who got excited by 3 polls showing Labour in third place last week explain.
Besides noting the irrelevancy of midterm polls. Especially ones around a change of PM.
That's Burnham firming up DKs and LD and Green voters moving back to Labour.
There could be more to come. I see Labour's cap as 33-34% if the Greens are fully squeezed.
Holidaying political blog editors please explain the logic of anyone getting excited by just one poll. 🤷♀️
As political anoraks, we all know what became of the Labour Party yesterday was a disaster.
con 39 seats
lab 255
lib 67
ref 239
gre 6
snp 21
pla 3
oth 2
NI 18
marginal lib-lab coalition, esp when sf don't sit
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=18&LAB=28&LIB=10&Reform=28&Green=10&UKIP=&TVCON=100&TVLAB=100&TVLIB=100&TVReform=100&TVGreen=100&TVUKIP=&TVNAT=100&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024base
I’ve said the polls are worth analysing in October.
Ann Widdecombe was struck by a hammer 21 times.
Although it does look like we may be getting one sooner rather than later with Labour polling high 20%s before we think about anti Farage voting
But earlier on Tuesday, the opening of an inquest into her death heard that while a post-mortem examination had taken place, "at this stage the precise medical cause of death has yet to be established".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj03r77n07jo
A pollster says any poll would be skewed by not having the major parties stand.
...
The BBC has been told that the Northern branch of Downing Street will be overseen by cabinet minister and ally of Burnham, Louise Haigh.
Haigh, who is the first secretary of state, is thought to have been asked to lead a new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (OPMC), which will give her control of key decision- making bodies across government.
The OPMC will include No 10, No 10 North and teams within the Cabinet Office.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d8p0l29pxo
More details (or tentative details in report). I wonder if civil servants moving to the frozen north will keep their London weighting as part of the incentive package.
And remember i'm looking at this from the employer side of things - I'm facing a £60,000 fine if I screw up - so how do you make my life easier and allow me to employ someone without said passport removing all risk of that fine..
The BBC moved a lot of Salford which just meant the talent all kept their London homes and got flats/houses up north. What was the point?
The single most irritating feature of autocorrect is its inappropriate insertion of the apostrophe. (That is not a euphemism, though perhaps it should be.)
I suspect it will be more effective than you imagine.
Burnham’s coronation has brought me back to PB after a long absence.
Healey was the obvious choice for Chancellor.
I’m surprised the commentariat are surprised:
Miliband too dangerous; Mahmood no proper experience.
Haigh becoming Minister for Policy (essentially) also a good move, despite my misgivings over her old fraud conviction. She was one of the few Starmer appointments with a working policy brain.
Streeting to Defence - interesting; Phillipson sidelined - good; new AI ministry - excellent.
In other areas, I have a more mixed opinion. Too many firings of perfectly serviceable ministers, just because they were Starmerites, if such a thing ever really existed. Perhaps more accurate to say they were not firm Burnhamites. The new government is thereby “clubbier” than any I remember - this can be seen in the sheer concentration of Northern ministers.
The electricity announcement shows that Burnham is politically canny in a way that Starmer could never be. It’s a rounding error on the national accounts, and it signals that the new government is “on your side”.
This is a positive start.
List
Sir James Bevan (shit in the water - failure of the regulator model)
Sir Chris Whitty (lockdown)
Tony Benn (party leaders elected by the membership)
Martin Lewis (saving in cash rather than investing in stocks)
Irene Rosenfeld (lying takeovers by foreigners)
Morgan McSweeney (faction fighter who alienated friends and failed to conciliate enemies)
Steven Bartlett (rise of the podcast, death of journalism)
Mary Whitehouse (rise of the pressure group)
Nigel Lawson (privatisation)
Links
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/james-bevan-what-he-did-to-this-country-4253589
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/boris-johnson-wrecked-britain-man-left-deeper-scars-4326071
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/hardcore-socialist-ruinous-idea-why-liz-truss-pm-4353094
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/martin-lewis-money-saving-expert-cost-britons-billions-4356949
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/american-woman-ripped-heart-cadbury-4448966
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/shadowy-maverick-pulled-labours-strings-sunk-starmer-4496353
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/steven-bartlett-glorified-pr-man-making-britain-worse-4448967
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/anti-sex-anti-fun-godmother-nimbys-gummed-britain-4615659
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/tory-sold-britains-greatest-assets-take-back-control-4634942
When I later did apply for a passport, it took a couple of weeks and several hundred pounds in new equipment. People say how easy the process is now probably already have one and are just renewing.
So yes, it is a real problem, especially for the digitally disadvantaged (which I think is the correct term) which correlates roughly with older and less prosperous groups.
People who already have ID misunderestimate the problems thrown up for those who do not. We may recall Jacob Rees-Mogg telling us that the Conservative gerrymander of requiring voting ID backfired because it disqualified so many of their own supporters.
Incidentally, getting an esim from Apple needed sending them a photo of my passport and a video of my face for their rogues' gallery. This is apparently somehow connected to the OSA.
So we have the worst of all worlds. Governments impose requirements for digital ID but do not provide a mechanism, so that various private companies, mostly based offshore, implement their own schemes, some of which will prove to be insecure and even the secure ones will be subject to official foreign spying laws.
Not entirely unfair.
Miliband's central role in nixing #UK (& thus, US) response to chemical weapons use in #Syria had **huge** global impacts:
- #Russia spurred on to invade #Ukraine
- Triggered the #Syria refugee crisis... which fueled far-right populism...
https://x.com/Charles_Lister/status/2079571195322597535
Preference 2: Liberalise the law so that any firm that has taken correct documentation required has no risk of fines.
Preference 3: Offer ID to anyone who needs it, free at the point of use.
Not needed at all: A new authoritarian universal ID or database.
I expect polling leads for labour but not at all concerned for Kemi who is popular and 3 more years for politics to settle
Indeed I am impressed with Burnham
That’s why I think you’re much better off moving whole organisations (or large business units within them) than parts of them. Don’t have “Number 10
North”, move a whole Department of State minus some life support around Parliament. DfT would be a good one: make DfT officials have to travel between Manchester and York a lot.
2. doesn't fix anything. - because I still don't know if the paperwork belongs to the person doing the work - this is how Uber Eats and co have got away with things for so long..
3. that requires all the steps identical to issuing a passport - see @DecrepiterJohnL for the issues you've got there - even getting the paperwork to apply can cost money.
None of those things are solving the problem I have which is anyone screws up I get a £60,000 fine.
My facebook feed is full of tempting stories from the i which I cannot read for the reasons you say. But I've just read the traducing of Chris Whitty from the link above and it worked fine.
EDIT: but none of the others do. Perhaps you get exactly one free article.
What might the consequences had been if the UK and US had conducted airstrikes on Syria, and they had failed to prevent the continued use of chemical weapons? That might have had even worse consequences in terms of diminishing Western deterrence power.
And I think it was Biden sticking to Trump's plan to withdraw from Afghanistan, and the humiliating fall of Kabul that resulted, that did most to persuade Putin he could invade Ukraine in 2022. The experience gained by Russia fighting for Assad in Syria was, I think, of less importance.
Remember that the time frame was very helpfully narrowed down to 20 minutes by Channel 5....
And why Manchester other than that's where Burnham lives? If this is such a good idea, why not Birmingham, Ilfracombe, Newcastle or even Clacton? At least it's not Brussels to Strasbourg. But it is getting close to the soft corruption we used to look askance at abroad: vote for me, for public munificence in your area.
2. So? That is all that is required and if taken there should be no offence. Better yet, do not require anything, see 1.
3. So? So too would your scheme, so that is not a counter argument. And if your scheme does not, it can exist without universality too.
All 3 deal with the problem of a fine. Abolish fines and you have zero risk of a fine.
ft.trib.al/GZChuKL
That's what they all want to hear.
He looks like the sort of guy who plays World of Warcraft online, and posts a lot on 4Chan, including incelly stuff, but to actually do something like this..
Why?
It is long overdue we do the same.
Move all but local politics and all but local civil servants out of London.
If only so PB can move on from talking about ID cards
I suspect that 28% for Reform is also the most they will get as they are seriously transfer vote unfriendly. Add on all the gory details still to come about Reform's finance sources and an early general election where those stories can be used to destroy the Reform vote makes sense...
Consolidate a left-wing vote in the low 30s and let the two right-wing parties checkmate each other.
It has a shot at working.
We need more courts open and more judges working longer hours. Justice needs to be faster.
Saying anyone here legally should be able to work != saying anyone not here legally should not. Nor does it = saying that it is the employers responsibility to ensure they don't.
The UK existed just fine without this mandate to check ID that never existed at all through any of eg Thatcher's term in office.
The solution to illiberalism is to liberalise, not add more illiberalism.
It should not be an employers responsibility to be border patrol, and never used to be.
My takeaway: fortify your property if you're a public figure.
The same process that creates far right terrorists (of which we’ve seen a few over the years) can be just as effective at creating leftist ones, we just haven’t seen as many of those in recent years. A group can turn in on itself & self-radicalise to the point where violence becomes a logical outcome of the group’s internal logic & relationship to the outside world.
What would not renovating the Palace of Westminster pay for?
The proposed current budget is £15.6 billion to £39.2 billion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgp2pzqr84o
Not only would that require substantial, and consistent, political will, it would immediately face stiff resistance from both vested London interests and any rival city who doesn't want the designated 'new centre' to benefit.
Anyway, just a flying visit. Morris Dancer away!
The splits within the left bloc and right bloc were (and are) an important part of the story, and part of Starmer's failure was not throwing enough bones to his own side to stop them drifting off to the Lib Dems and the Greens and the sofa.
Burnham has cheered a lot of them up, simply by not being Starmer. Whether he can keep his actual nationwide support base on-board, as opposed to his slightly imagined and much more localised one, depends on how he governs.
What we have is not working is not a reason to continue with what we have.
And, of course, there is soul music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_music
I don't suppose there will be any parallel for the first, but I hope that Northern Soul's political success will produce some music worth listening to. Any evidence of that, so far? (If Wikipedia is right, the movement with that name has a way to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_soul )