Andy Burnham’s much-promised strong and decisive leadership has been long on vibes, short on action during his first 100 days. With one telling exception. He has stuck to his guns about what the nation should call white bread rolls. Namely, ‘barm cakes’, as they do in his new constituency of Makerfield. In doing so, he’s […]
John Healey’s debut Budget was a coward’s charter. Despite there being a record 98 measures in the Chancellor’s announcement, all the major decisions have been kicked into the long grass. Despite having resigned as Defence Secretary over funding concerns under Keir Starmer, Healey delayed detailing how the Government would fund raising defence spending to 3.5% […]
This was meant to be a do-no-harm Budget. If that was really the aim, it has failed miserably. It’s a Budget that raises taxes by £7 billion and attacks entrepreneurs, savers and the rental market in particular. The first point to note is that the increases in income tax on savings and property income are […]
A quick show of hands. How many of you have a working torch in the kitchen drawer, and not just on your phone? Candles, matches or a working pack of AA batteries? What about a week’s worth of tinned food, a camping stove, a full jerry can? A generator? Most readers will have answered no […]
When John Healey sits down next Wednesday, the press gallery will focus hard on his headroom against the fiscal rules. In March the OBR put this at £23.6 billion against the main rule, which requires day-to-day spending to be covered by revenue by 2029/30. A recent Reuters poll of economists suggests it has since shrunk […]
Earlier this month, the Government announced it would pause its wide-ranging plans for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), which would have redrawn local council and parish boundaries and overhauled a system that has been in place for centuries. As focus shifts to Andy Burnham’s less wordy – but no less ambitious – plans for devolution, England’s […]
Channel 5 has announced that it is preparing to dramatise the Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal. The 90-minute film will be made by Wonderhood Studios, whose most recent work was the well-received ‘Downfall’ about Huw Edwards. Not much is known about the production as yet, but those hoping for a deep dive into the complexities of […]
The problem for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new prime ministers who take over part-way through a Parliament is they start with a king-sized chip on their shoulders. They walk through Downing Street’s door knowing they aren’t the one who won the election mandate they’re inheriting, and needing to defuse whichever political crisis overwhelmed their predecessor too. […]
Talk about reforming the machinery of government often sounds like a wine tasting. One expert raises the glass, considers the latest initiative and says: ‘An interesting effort, but not enough depth.’ Another detects ‘promising notes of delivery, rather spoiled by departmental silos’. A third finds ‘hints of innovation and accountability, but with a disappointingly familiar […]
Andy Burnham’s Manc-a-Lago plan to escape the Westminster bubble by shipping bits of No.10 to the North is fated to fizzle out: the wrong answer to a problem misdiagnosed. The idea seems to be that physical proximity will make people feel the heart of government better understands them, while the new office will be full […]
For those of us old enough to remember Andy Burnham as a not-especially-effective member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet in the late 2000s, it is sometimes difficult to see what qualities have made some sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party speak of him as if he were a Merseyside Aragorn. To them, after a self-imposed exile, […]
When Andy Burnham enters No10 in weeks the pressure to implement new policy will be massive. The advisers who hold his ear will try to act fast, thinking that they have learnt the lesson from Starmer’s processology. Labour MPs have made their desire for ‘big change’ known for months but have failed to articulate it […]
Putting support services such as cleaning, security, and building maintenance out to tender has been a significant success since the policy was first introduced in the 1980s. Starting in local government but extended to central government, such services have cost less and been delivered to a higher standard as a result of competition. Yet Labour, […]
The Greek poets understood that the cruellest fate is not the one a man brings upon himself, but the one that was waiting for him before he arrived. Oedipus did not choose his fate, indeed he walked into it with the very best of intentions. So too, in his quieter and more lawyerly fashion, did […]
The ‘Burnham effect’ that propelled Labour to victory in Makerfield is only the latest example of regional and devolved democratic leaders who are miles more popular than their opposite numbers in Westminster. Political talents as diverse as Boris Johnson and Alex Salmond prospered after being sprinkled with devolved political fairy dust. So do these roles […]
How big is the state? It might seem like a bit of an odd question to ask and there are a number of ways you can answer it. We can look at how much it spends as a share of national income (expected to have been 44.8% in 2025/26), or how many people work for […]
The 6-7 craze is about to turn from a meaningless, but ultimately fun, meme into something decidedly more serious: the number of UK Prime Ministers in the last 10 years. British firms and families are battling spiralling energy bills while our towns and cities are disfigured by rashes of vape shops, epidemics of shoplifting and […]
Across Whitehall, pressure on government departments to reduce costs has never been greater. With UK borrowing costs at their highest level in 28 years and the Chancellor under intense pressure to meet her Budget rules, every pound of public spending is under scrutiny. Labour’s target of £14 billion in efficiency savings by 2029 sets the […]
Here is an idiotic question for an England football fan this summer. Which would they prefer winning? The World Cup itself? Or the FIFA Fair Play Trophy, awarded to the side with the best disciplinary record during the tournament? The answer: it might be nice if England plays decently, but all of us would hugely […]
Anyone who’s ever watched ‘The West Wing’ knows it’s only fiction, but wishes it wasn’t. It’s a glowing picture of how government ought to work. But as the never-ending fallout from Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US shows, the reality is often closer to ‘The Thick Of It’ or ‘Yes Minister’ instead. Behind […]
Nearly three years ago I launched Next Gen Tories (NGT), a pressure group to focus the Conservative Party on winning back voters under the age of 45. For too long, the Conservatives had ignored the growing problem that younger generations weren’t achieving the key milestones that might make someone feel like they have a greater […]
If the definition of political success is when other people start claiming your ideas as their own, then this week’s speech by Richard Tice committing Reform UK to creating a UK sovereign wealth fund ought to count as a pretty big win. I first proposed the idea in a policy paper more than a decade […]
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