Most of those who, despite all discouragement, continue to invest in the UK have a sense of foreboding over an Andy Burnham premiership. We know that he will try to reconcile two irreconcilables. First, he will offer bold, exciting change from the uninspiring couple of years under Keir Starmer. Second, he will resist holding an […]
There was as much doubt about Labour’s leadership nominations as there was at the Accession Council in September 2022. Like the Privy Counsellors before them, Labour MPs have declared Andy Burnham leader with ‘one voice and consent of tongue and heart’. Although he won’t officially be declared Labour’s new leader until July 17, by securing […]
Clacton is regularly noted as a ‘left behind constituency’, receiving little government support, with few jobs and poor educational attainment. One must only walk down Pier Avenue in the town centre to see the empty shops and occasional homeless person. But to so many in Westminster it has been a constituency of intense political fascination. […]
For many people, there is a brilliant piece of music or an inspiring novel that changes their life. For a freak like me, it was obviously a documentary. And of course it was a documentary about Margaret Thatcher. Released just after she died, ‘Margaret, Death of A Revolutionary’ set me on the path of believing […]
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 […]
Here it comes again. Whoever Andy Burnham chooses to be his Chancellor of the Exchequer will face the same challenge as all their predecessors since Gordon Brown: producing ‘fiscal rules’ to reassure the City they will be prudent holders of the nation’s credit card. With Britain’s national debt higher than it’s been for decades, and […]
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 […]
‘It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down,’ Andy Burnham said in his first major speech since returning to Parliament. ‘Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up.’ He is right. The man about to enter Downing Street has seen what much of his party […]
It received less media attention than many of his more eye-catching announcements, but yesterday Andy Burnham stated that under his premiership, British firms would be favoured for government contracts. While this is well meaning, outside a narrow set of circumstances such as issues relating to national security, this would be a costly mistake. First, it […]
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, […]
Andy Burnham said this morning how seriously he takes Alan Milburn’s review of youth unemployment. If that’s true, he should pay close attention to one of its most important findings: the cost of employment is standing in the way of businesses hiring young people. Since Labour came to power they have put up the cost […]
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 refusal of the Treasury to increase defence spending shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is exactly what HM Treasury is supposed to do: stop spending that it sees as unaffordable, unless the necessary trade-offs are made to unblock it. The point of cabinet government is for Secretaries of State to make their case for […]
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 […]
The numbers are not in dispute, whatever the spin. Andy Burnham took Makerfield with 54.8% of the vote and a majority of 9,231, on a turnout of 58.7%, the highest at any parliamentary by-election in almost seven years. Labour’s lead over Reform, 13 points at the general election, widened to 20. A seat Reform UK […]
Viewers of ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ – now back for another season – will be familiar with Jeremy Clarkson’s long-running battle with the bureaucrats of West Oxfordshire District Council. When his Diddly Squat farm shop boomed, the council dragged their feet over planning permission for a car park extension, bizarrely decreed he could only sell goods from […]
Looking For Growth has launched the Emergency Energy Bill – a ready-made piece of legislation that the Government should pass tomorrow. But it won’t. Labour won’t take the radical action necessary to get bills down unless we force them to. This Government, just like many of its predecessors over the last thirty years, has prioritised […]
When John Healey resigned as Defence Secretary last week, there was widespread praise for his principled stand. The financial settlement contained in the final draft of the Defence Investment Plan, believed to offer the Ministry of Defence an additional £10 billion or so over the next four years, was not even close to the resources […]
Can you imagine anything worse than a foreign company whose software saved lives, cut NHS waiting lists, put more police on the beat and reduced crime? It’s appalling, isn’t it? No British government or public sector body should have any dealings with such a company. Obviously. Much better to let patients die, cut police jobs […]
It’s only on the basis of truth that power should be won – or indeed can be worth winning. Margaret Thatcher, 1996 It is a hundred years since Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham. Fifty years since she took over the Conservative Party. Almost 35 years since she was forced from office. Today’s voters are […]
Andy Burnham has one prescription, and he means to fill it, whatever the patient walks in with. The man with the broken arm, the woman with chest pains, the child with a fever: each leaves the surgery with the same pad of repeat scripts, which call for higher taxes on the rich, more generous benefits […]
Ten years ago, the EU referendum created two new political tribes: Leavers and Remainers. As Sara Hobolt and I show in our new book ‘Tribal Politics: How Brexit divided Britain’, both tribes are very much still with us. Even today, about 60% of people in Britain identify as a Remainer or a Leaver, and people’s […]
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