Let me give Andy Burnham his due. For the best part of a decade he was the most persuasive voice in the country for letting go – for the plain truth that a decision taken in Whitehall about a town no official has ever visited tends to be worse than the one the people who […]
Trains run on rails. And access to these rails determines what services can be offered. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries the railways were privately owned. Most companies, however small, initially owned their own permanent way. It soon became apparent that, rather than forcing passengers on long journeys to disembark and join another […]
Andy Burnham is, apparently, going to solve the old age care problem. I tend to think he won’t but there we are, me and my cynicism. For he’s talking of organising something like the NHS, a National Care Service, which – as with the NHS – is the wrong way to do things. In order […]
On June 23 Britain’s grid came close to collapse. Despite energy minister Michael Shanks calling claims ‘scaremongering’, new whistleblower information shows the grid had indeed been pushed past safe operating limits. A leaked National Energy System Operator (NESO) document said that ‘system constraints were breached and system security was compromised’ – a damning indictment of […]
In his first days as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham announced a series of populist pledges that purport to address the cost of living, but fail to address the deep structural issues afflicting the British economy. Burnham will soon discover – like the four short-lived predecessors who held office before him – that the voters of […]
Last week, Andy Burnham inaugurated ‘No 10 North’, his signature project, by working for the first time from the government’s new Manchester base, a self-styled ‘situation room for growth’. The symbolism was clear: power would no longer be concentrated in Whitehall. But the rhetoric remains stronger than the detail. The detail we have is concerning. […]
Yesterday morning, John Healey woke up for the first time as our country’s Chancellor. A dream come true perhaps – but the legacy he’s received from his predecessor is more the stuff of nightmares. The first figures out that day were the latest ONS stats on employment. Not a rosy picture. They show 160,000 fewer […]
As Andy Burnham stood outside Downing Street on Monday to launch his new regime, our new Prime Minister did his best to prove to his 349 parliamentary backers that they had made the right decision. Much of his speech was rhetorical filler. ‘I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I […]
John Healey is the eleventh chancellor since the 2008 global financial crisis. Some of his predecessors served only briefly, but the direction of travel has been clear, regardless of who occupied Number 11. Growth has been modest, living standards have stagnated and the public finances have deteriorated. The pandemic made matters worse, but the direction […]
In his first full day as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham has announced that VAT on household energy bills will be removed from October. While no doubt well intentioned, this would be a mistake. First, it is risky for the public finances. VAT on energy bills brings in a significant amount of revenue. The Government has […]
‘I’m personally convinced that our civilisation is approaching its end,’ wrote the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge in 1980. ‘I think of St Augustine when, in AD 410, the news was brought to him in Carthage that Rome had been sacked by the Barbarians.’ Jim Callaghan was equally gloomy. In 1974, he remarked: ‘When I am […]
Below is a speech incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham could give – one that would unite the country around a shared vision of prosperity. Prosperity for All My fellow citizens, Today, as I stand before you as your Prime Minister, I want to cut through the political noise and give you the unvarnished truth about […]
In Gordium, the capital of Phrygia, stood an oxcart, its yoke connected to the pole by a knot of cornel bark so intricate that no one could find where it began or ended. An oracle promised that whoever undid it would rule all Asia. For generations, clever men picked at it, theorised, and organised what […]
For a nation of Nimbys, Britain – or at least London – is remarkably fond of its skyscrapers. We love them so much we give them cutesy diminutives like ‘The Gherkin’, ‘The Cheesegrater’ and the ‘Walkie Talkie’. We boast about vistas from which you can see them, marketing properties for their ‘stunning view of The […]
Barring some form of constitutional crisis, Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister. We do not even know who his new Chancellor will be, let alone what their policies and priorities are. However, whoever gets the top job at 1 Horse Guards Road, they should make tax reform their top priority if they want to bring […]
Across the UK, millions of people rely on the railways to travel. From 2024 to 2025, there were 1.7 billion passenger rail journeys, of which 1.08 billion were completed within a single region. And yet all too often, local rail has been neglected, with funding prioritised for London and the South East. As a result […]
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