Councils and Mayors are suggesting what they would like to for their communities. They are soon discovering Mr Burnham has no intention of giving them powers to do popular things in their own areas.
Some want the right to say No to housing and accommodation being made available preferentially to illegal arrivals in the UK. They think the Home Office is putting far too many young males into adapted barracks or social housing relative to the size of the local community and the facilities available. Government intends to override local wishes.
Some areas want to slow the rate of new development because of the strains it is placing on local roads, public services and utilities. Government intends to drive through more housing regardless of local wishes and the realities of service provision.
Some Mayors rightly see that if they are given more grant from Whitehall the priority is to get local tax bills down to ease the squeeze from Council tax increases on family budgets. Ms Haigh dismissively says Mayors cannot become mini Chancellors and are not to give tax cuts.
So on the big three issues, the cost of living and tax squeeze, the pace of inward migration, and plans for each local community the government says a big No to devolution. Indeed it plans to centralise more, driving up taxes to spend more, putting more illegal arrivals in unsuitable locations and overriding plans for community development. It is one big con.
August 2, 2026
‘Councils and Mayors are suggesting what they would like to for their communities. They are soon discovering Mr Burnham has no intention of giving them powers to do popular things in their own areas.’
Even before Burnham, there were clashes in London, with Sad Dick Khan overruling numerous London councils. Same old, same old :-
https://motspurparkgasholdersgetinvolved.com/objecting/
Similar issues off the A3 ( Ace of Spades roundabout) with plans to build on green fields. Similar encroachment onto green belt land. Bit by bit the open space disappears.
August 2, 2026
Did anyone really believe that a Fabian PM would hand powers back to the regions, it’s the same as believing that a Socialist Government would reduce taxes.
The whole ethos of liebour is for more state control. It’s only a short time before the Messiah is as hated as Starmer.
August 2, 2026
Indeed as none of his policies make any sense and none address the real issues such as growth, energy costs, tax levels, immigration levels, the size of welfare and the bloated state sector.
August 2, 2026
Absolutely. Should be found out relatively quickly though.
Like everything else when he’s forced out of the stage managed protective bubble in which he currently revels he and his rotten team will be exposed badly.
Utter joke of a government.
August 2, 2026
Utter Joke indeed but not funny – looks like being an even worse government than Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak and Starmer. Which offer considerable competition in the dire and dishonest government stakes.
August 2, 2026
Of real significance is the fact that BP are pulling the stumps and selling their North Sea business. This leaves them with a few petrol stations and little else in the UK.
When they decamp to the USA there will be much gnashing of teeth at the loss of a major company bit no doubt cheered by Milibrain and his protege Fannybullah.
August 2, 2026
Who can blame them? Though the directors did go for the Beyond Petroleum lunacy costing billions – now thankfully reversed.
August 2, 2026
How do we know they don’t have woke shareholders and directors who have said no drilling? BP were the first oil company to go for renewables. There are lots of little companies you won’t have heard of waiting to have a go and do us proud West of the Shetlands if only the global communists will let them.
August 2, 2026
@AJ
The responsibility, Government Cabinet collective responsibility? The concept is the ‘whole’ of a government cabinet debate and approves everything they enact and put before Parliament and the Country.
For where we are to day Burnham has form;
2005 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, responsible for implementing the Identity Cards Act 2006.
Minister of State for Delivery and Reform at the Department of Health.[19]
2007, Burnham was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury, a position he held until 2008. During his tenure at the Treasury, he played a key role in drafting the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. (The Financial Crisis that we are still paying for/)
2008–2009: Culture Secretary. Burnham announced government plans to tighten controls on internet content to rectify what he described as an imbalance with television regulations. He added, “My job – Government’s job – is to preserve the value in the system.”
He is just trashing around to find someone else to blame
August 2, 2026
Healey “I will not allow supermarkets to rip you off” I is the Labour government that is ripping people off. It is you policies of NI increases, minimum wage increases, rip off “renewable” energy policies, council tax imcreases, employment red tape, devaluing £ due to low comfidence in Labour that is pushing up shop prices and closing pubs, shops, businesses and restaurants Healy. It was 50 years ago that the 98% income tax Deinis Healey went begging to the IMF having bankrupted the country.
August 2, 2026
@Lifelogic – when do we call the ‘blame game’ what it is just lies to cover up ineptitude
August 2, 2026
Quite right, LL, it is government which creates inflation, not shopkeepers. The markup on food is tiny and cut price. The global communists won’t be satisfied till we have no energy, no water, and no food.
August 2, 2026
LL: Healey flogging this one again. Confrontational approach i m o. Rachel Reeves already got replies from the experts in the food trade some weeks ago after she stupidly suggested the price capping of some foods. Anyone with a bit of common sense can all keep their own eyes on the supermarkets’ pricing. I agree he should keep his eye on the fuel costs easily open to manipulation, not to mention the tax take. Leave the rest to those aforementioned experts.
August 2, 2026
Well there we go, Reform lose again – Labour win the Manchester mayoral election. With 66.3 % of the vote. The Reform candidate came a distant second and could only secure 21%. Embarrassingly, the Badenoch approved anti-net zero Tory got 7.7% – coming fifth behind both Restore Britain and The Greens
The dreadful Nigel Farage failed to visit Manchester once to support his candidate.
August 2, 2026
With a 25% turnout, I think the Apathy Party actually won – even without fielding a candidate.
August 2, 2026
And a rigged voting system which greatly increased the gap. We voted in a national referendum to retain FPTP and once again the result of the referendum has been flouted. I don’t remember the switch to this corrupt and complicated Continental system of PR going through Parliament.
Does Farage still want the EU system? Or will he now see the virtues of our own FPTP?
August 2, 2026
Depends how you spin it . As a Socialist or part of Manchester electorate Liebour could only achieve just 12.5% support, or 97.5% of Manchester rejected Liebour. Overall 75% of Manchester electorate rejected even having a Mayor of Manchester
August 2, 2026
+1
August 2, 2026
They bumped it up to 66.3% using a corrupt and complicated Continental system of PR.
August 2, 2026
What did you expect in Manchester, other than a Labour win. There is nowhere else in this country where Labour would be more certain of winning an election
Burnham has left Manchester with a £1.34 billion debt and Piccadilly “Gardens” full of 3rd world criminals.
August 3, 2026
If it had been FPTP and if the right had not split into 3, they would have won.
August 2, 2026
SG : ” Well there we go, Reform lose again – Labour win the Manchester mayoral election”
True, but I note that the first round of this 2026 election compared to the 2024 election Labour lost 169,300 votes whilst Reform gained 62,396 votes on a turnout which dropped from 32% to 25% (124,972 fewer votes). Hardly a ringing endorsement of the Labour candidate, was it? It will be interesting to see how the voters view the upcoming rolling blackouts (rationing), if not a complete grid shutdown, which is inevitable as a result of Net Zero policies.
August 2, 2026
I’ll tell you what’s one big con – the House of Lords
August 2, 2026
With dire people like Barroness May (still with the Tory whip) and Lord Sadiq Kahn, Blunkett, Mandelson and many more depressing people who should never ever have been elevated. Yet Anne Widdecombe never made it.
August 3, 2026
Yes, LL, Lady May continues to be dire on nearly every subject but has somehow survived Mrs Badenoch’s purge.
August 2, 2026
Mind you, councils themselves are often a cause for concern. Planning permissions are a huge source of power. Our council leader used to go to conferences in the South of France and get his relatives employed in council building work. The lot that followed were not much better.
Going back to the 1970s, you had the John Poulson scandal – widespread bribing of councillors to gain business.
August 2, 2026
In other news, Trump calls off further strikes on Iran subject to a deal being made rapidly. It’s like Groundhog Day.
Spain sees the illegal migrants leaving Ceuta for Morocco, without a single shot being fired. The BBC is unhappy – as if it’s Spain’s fault there were deaths when the illegals tried to swim across.
August 3, 2026
Is Trump playing the IRGC at their own game? Messing about and not negotiating seriously, while regrouping and rearming, at the same time calming the markets? Who knows?
August 3, 2026
And Poulson concrete. Council flats in Bristol had to be evacuated and rebuilt.
August 2, 2026
Maybe Burnham is looking for someone blame when things go wrong ?
Devolution might give him that, but the more conditions he imposes, the easier it will be for the blame to rebound back to him.
August 2, 2026
Oxford local government went to court to get an injunction to stop English people flying the English flag in England. that is the level of clowns we attract into local politics. try stopping an American flying an American flag in America, watch what happens…the same should happen here.
August 2, 2026
Ian, the injunction was to ban flying the union flag or cross of St George only on council owned street furniture i.e. lamp posts.
People can still fly either flag on their own properties, as I have been doing since long before all of this started.
I am British English and proud to show that at my front door, just as they do in America with their flag.
August 2, 2026
Council owned equals owned by the public, the English public that paid for them with money, and with blood to keep the country free.
The nutters who don’t like the flags can get stuffed.
August 3, 2026
It was their sense of priority that was so disturbing. Putting flag flying above anti social behaviour and other crime.
August 2, 2026
The only new devolution required in the UK. Is a parliament for England, to make us equal to the other three countries.
August 2, 2026
@Old Albion
I might prefer less Government rather than more ?
eg …a final referendum for Scotland.
Either Holyrood … or Westminster …. not both.
August 2, 2026
Holyrood cost £400 million plus to build. I don’t think the electorate in Scotland will want to shut it down, until it has been used fully.
August 2, 2026
They did not pay!
August 2, 2026
Please no, not another expensive talking shop telling me how to live my life. Central and local government is quite enough, great to see the EU parliament gone as far as the UK is concerned.
August 2, 2026
Mayors will be able to set the bus timetable and the DEI budget.
Well worth it.
August 2, 2026
Mayors will be able to take instruction from the EU.
August 2, 2026
Yes it is a problem for him, some of these local Mayors are from Reform so it will be tricky for him to curb their power whilst letting the Labour Mayors do whatever they want. I expect this will be solved by applying two-tier rules.
August 2, 2026
I’m still waiting for an intelligent comment to come out of the PMs’ mouth. So far absolutely nothing to inspire anyone to start or grow a business.
O/T
The Ceuta incident has shown you can be successful in turning away unwelcome migrants. All you need to do is offer nothing, and they go back. Presumably if there’s nothing to be gained by them, they won’t come in the first place.
August 2, 2026
Starmer persuaded Blair and Brown to compel us by law to provide housing, food, clothes, medical and dental care, and money, to illegal immigrants. I don’t think any other country has this law.
August 2, 2026
These ‘mock’ Councils and Mayors along with the fraudulent devolution are just there to be the punch bag of un-popular central governments. Everything from the money down to the way and what the money is spent on is from the diktats of the ‘politburo’. There is no such thing as moving the power down the line, the ability for communities to control, expand and do what they have decided is right for them.
The ‘politburo’ just wants puppets another ‘tier’ that can be kicked before the central command and control is directly blamed. It’s the same ‘old’, same ‘old’, the one size fit all personal image as the ‘gang boss’ wants things. There is and never has been any intention of those that can do better for their communities being able to get on and do things in away that suits that community. There has never been any intention of allowing the concept that different areas, different regions and different people are not the ‘politburo’s’ clones.
The 70 million inhabitants of these isles are to be shaped to conform to the personal will of left-wing terrorist, the modern-day William the Conquer with his surfs keeping him entertained. That is the Socialist way, the blame others way as long as you get to hold on to be ‘the ruler’
August 2, 2026
Mr Burnham says his priorities are to return to the 1970s, turn every postcode into a mini-Manchester and improve the status of carers. He promises that these powerful drivers of national prosperity and contentment will cost no more than a few tens of billions in extra taxes.
Who needs( a joke candidate ed) when we have Mr Burnham to guide us?
August 2, 2026
The objective of the strategic authorities programme is to remove local councils’ ability to stand in the way of central government agendas, especially those pushed on them by the United Nations and the World Conference of Mayors. With decision-making at local government level focused around cities, which tend to vote Green/Labour, these agendas can be implemented more successfully than at present. Rural and semi-rural areas will no longer be able to decide anything much for themselves. Welcome to the Great Reset.
August 2, 2026
Devolution in the shape of new mayors is not going to improve anything – with limits to what a mayor can do, but with extra money to play with we are going to see 2 things:
– vanity projects that achieve very little;
– Mayors will want to borrow more against the revised income to give themselves more to spend. That will increase national debt and lumber taxpayers with ever money to pay back to the bankers. There will be more black holes with money disappearing than you could shake a stick at.
We know how useless government is with projects, and there will be no safeguards to ensure that mayors spend their new found wealth effectively or even to the benefit of locals.
Burnham picked up on the advice Blair gave Starmer, which was along the lines of ‘making a fuss about listening to what people want and give them some of that. While that is going on quietly carry on with the major socialist legislation that you want to achieve.’
Let’s face it Burnham is a socialist and will continue the trend of failing to give us what we really need while imposing every last suppressive form of control he can get away with.
August 2, 2026
It appears this policy will go the same way as that for increasing economic growth. Into the bin. But will it bring down this new messiah’s poll ratings?
I cannot understand those who have suddenly switched their voting preference just because of a name change of leadership.
Perhaps it was the relief that they had rid the country of the worst Prime Minister in history.
Time and action will prove if Burnham is any better. If only he’d put our country before his Party.
August 2, 2026
Mayors and Puppet Councils, today’s answer for tomorrows blame game. Who is loaned the powers, empowered and paid to ensure the UK is Safe, Secure, Resilient and Self-Reliant?
From the today’s Media – “Healey: I will not allow supermarkets to rip you off”
The lies just keep coming, Thatcher, Brexit, a War somewhere on the Planet. Just more feeble responses for failure. If Thatcher was the Country’s problem why when Burnham was in office part of the collective responsibility of a UK Cabinet member, why did he not do something then? To busy screwing up the ‘finance markets’? not to be forgotten Burnham ‘owns’ a lot of today’s failure’s – he has a history of screw-ups he wants personally to forget
Who earns most out of oil and gas? It ‘aint’ the super market, it is not the wholesaler, it’s not the producer it is this Socialist Government!
Who has increased the cost of living the most in the last couple of years? It is not the retailers, it is not the wholesaler, it’s not the producer it is this Socialist Government!
Who killed the UK’s resilience, self-reliance, UK Farming, UK Fishing? It wasn’t at any time the retailers, the wholesaler, the producer. It was the UK Government!
Who turned the UK into an importer instead of a producer? It wasn’t UK Business; it wasn’t the UK Worker – It was the UK Government!
The lies, the lies, my kingdom of lies. Lies are told so often that these numpties are beginning to sound as if the believe them themselves
August 2, 2026
Grocers said they were already delivering the most affordable food in Western Europe, while also claiming that tax rises under Labour were largely to blame for a recent uptick in prices.
Andrew Opie of the British Retail Consortium, which represents the likes of M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, said: “Supermarkets operate in a highly competitive environment, delivering the most affordable food in Western Europe.
“The Government’s independent competition regulator, the CMA [Competition and Markets Authority], has repeatedly found that fierce competition between retailers, not government action, has kept food prices as low as possible.”
Burnham, Healy, totally deluded, delusional, looking for a scape-goat – enhancing the blame game in hope no one notices who has caused this crippling mess. The Liebour Party may have changed their leader but have they change the lies?
August 2, 2026
Looking for hope I thought the idea of closer ties between local business and schools to help the young transition into the work place was a good thing ?
August 2, 2026
Devolution in Name Only – just an extra layer of bureaucracy and all its associated costs, but much preferable to Burnham and his cronies than doing something about the difficult things that really matter, like the defence of the realm, education of the next generation or a health service that works for its users.
August 2, 2026
Let’s have real devolution leave the money and power with the people and businesses who made it and are good at doing so more power to dire local politicians is the last thing we need any more of.
August 2, 2026
326 illegals landed in the UK yesterday ….not a peep from the news media
August 2, 2026
GC: 326 01 Aug and on only 4 boats too.
So, from 01 JAN to 01 AUG 2026 inclusive HM Government has welcomed 14.527 illegal Channel arrivals in 218 boats. ( Official figures ) Don’t worry though, the numbers are down which the smugglers are probably working on to fix as we speak with lots of reduced offers on the table we gather. However, HMG’s preference appears to be at the moment reduced offers at our supermarkets.
August 2, 2026
This illegal immigration will continue as a direct result of 24,927 people voting for Mr. Burnham in the Makerfield by-election.
August 2, 2026
Just another expensive tier of useless individuals who will shoulder the Governments blame when things go wrong. The whole concept of devolution is a con and when you look at the numpties who have ran Scotland for the SNP and Wales for Labour, who in their right mind would want that for their own area?
August 2, 2026
Fantasy meets “No money Left” track record of failure to respect modern Challenges in the real world that is outside the synthetic lanyard group think Public Sector, well insulated gravy train.
August 2, 2026
All Burnham wants to do with ‘regionalization’ is to organize regional administration into larger units, to make the country easier for him to control with carrot-and-stick funding whose use will be strictly dictated by him.
It’s not often that a government policy is immediately seen through. First of many such, one assumes.
August 2, 2026
In two weeks, Burnham has shown he has no understanding of the economy or how to grow it. A serious PM would have spent the time locked away with his Chancellor, working out how to cut government spending so as to reduce taxation. Both personal and Business taxes are too high, so growth is being squeezed. But all we hear about is things which will cost money. The new PM is living in a self-imposed bubble which reality will burst in the near future.
August 2, 2026
We have no idea when it comes to devolution.
For the Swedes, it has nothing to do with independence but it is placing accountability with responsibility. Local income tax is set by local politicians for local services including health care and social services.
August 2, 2026
Mock Devolution:
The real purpose is to give power to the “Citizen Smiths” as these people will have the time to attend all the decision-making meetings as they all have the non-jobs in the Civil Service, local government, the hundreds of quangos and thousands of charities. They know the “alarm clock” Brits will not have the time available unless they take time off work and lose pay.
August 2, 2026
No devolution for the Chagos Islands (Burnham Government Signs Trade Memo With Mauritius as British Ambassador Says Chagos Deal Still ‘Right’ ..https://order-order.com/2026/07/31/burnham-government-signs-trade-memo-with-mauritius-as-british-ambassador-says-chagos-deal-still-right/) ….its all rotten
August 2, 2026
Dave Andrews: We are a charitable people and end up accepting the illegals no matter where they
come from.Thankyou France Belgium and now(I hear) Netherlands.
Spain has control of the sea strait and was able to say go home or stay here and suffer.Next will be large inflatables headed to Gibraltar?
August 2, 2026
We are a charitable people – so let the charities pay and not the taxpayer. If funds are short, the charities need to plead more. Let them take responsibility for third world cultural practices.
August 2, 2026
Enough !
We are in the End of Days.