@meggie The Tory press will do their best to bring him down.
As well as the faceless executives of the utility companies, and their backers.

@peterlee While the Labour Press will support him.

The "executives" are not "faceless" but too many of the owners are foreign, some of them nations, not stock-market spivs.

@senghenydd Was the straw poll with the people you mix with in your social circle?

@FreddieUK Only 55% of the electorate voted in the last General Election.
Burnham works quickly and is Positive in his approach. He has enough time to make an impact.
Kemi is busy working out alternatives which may work. Hopefully the Tories will stick with her.
As for the rest, the Liberal Democrats seem to be asleep or having no impact. Though they are the only party which will rejoin the EU.

Reform are a nightmare. But remember Burnham recently got into Parliament against a strong Reform opposition.

Let’s give Andy a chance.

@MrVintage71 oh it's worse than that she was the housing secretary last time around too and didn't understand capital gains tax in relation to multiple houses; and then blamed the estate agents for not giving her advice until the MD of the agents pointed out they had told her to get legal advice! After which she shortly resigned ....

@gandalf1957 And how much taxpayers money will be spent on travel,Security,and meetings up North for his weekly visits,going to cost the taxpayer ..Already no different than previous governments..

@MrVintage71 yes just seen him talking about the cost to Mancurians travelling to a meeting in London to make an argument - has he not heard of the telephone and video calls? Also hear that Lou Haigh (first secretary of state), Lisa Powell and Angela Rayner will be working out of Nr 10 North some days of the week - so clearly will be less easily summoned to answer questions in parliament!

@peterlee I hope he does stand up to Trump when necessary.

He recently had President Trump congratulating him on wanting to obtain more oil and gas from the NorthSea with the comment that it will make Britain rich.

Aye, and make me the King of Persia. Trump will want it for the American oil companies, so the profits will go to the USA not UK (even if they actually pay all the business taxes).

I don't know if its legally possible, but even if we can't do as Norway did and as we should have done in the first place, which is the nation owns the deposits and products and use the companies as contractors, I believe the UK as a nation should hold a majority stake in it as a "shareholder" with political, commercial and regulatory oversight. I'm not sure how: perhaps sell the licences as shares-holdings that never total more than, say, 40%?


I don't think Andy Burnham is in a mood to let Trump drag the UK into his (Trump's) illegal war against Iran; but I would hope he won't.

@AdmiralPrune Sir Keir actually went to Leeds.

But the days of the outmoded PPE brigade are hopefully over. That degree was introduced in 1928 to run the Empire.

@peterlee We’re talking about Andy Burnham.

@peterlee Nothing wrong with Cambridge or Oxford Universities, which both have strong technical as well as humanities schools.

Wikipedia does say Mr. Burnham gained a Masters degree at Cambridge, but in English. Not in politics or economics.

And that prior to entering politics, he worked as a journalist for a transport-trade magazine.

(Unlike say, Peter Mandelson, who never had a proper job outside of politics.)

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout

So who do suggest then:

Kemi, who knows what to do, but by in fourteen years the Tories do nothing? I simply don’t trust them.

Davey, with his silly jokes, and a lot of MPs, offers us nothing.

And of Farage, and his slogans. God help us if we are fooled by him.

@peterlee the time to act was 2 decades ago..
Brace for collapse like the rest of us under installed Fabian’s.. 🇦🇺

@TheOneyouwerewarnedabout But it is the now that matters. Not the past.

It seems we cannot, or will not rejoin the EU.
And Xi, Putin and Trump are nightmares. This is the reality.

I see you are in Australia. The UK is not much concern to you.

@peterlee Later restored - though it does need revising.

I was discussing that very matter with a group of friends recently - all of us pensioners receiving that allowance. One said it is not paid to the household but the individual - she said within her own family is one household of three people all being paid it despite living in the same house. I'd not known that! Another said it should be means-tested.

Very little is clear-cut in politics, irrespective of ideology and party; but unfortunately binary approaches make for easy slogans, and vice-versa.

@peterlee didn't Reeves early pronouncement withdrawing the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and backed up by Starmer show how out of touch with public opinion they were?
I read that apparently the Treasury made the same suggestion to at least the last 4 Tory Chancellors all of whom said it was political suicide to do so!

@gandalf1957 The Tories committed political suicide anyway. The worst ones have joined ReformUK and the ones left are pretty unpalatable in their views and approach to helping the country as far as I'm concerned. 'Bellicose' is the best way to describe the whole right wing in the UK at the moment.