Andy Burnham’s idea that if the government delegates more money and power to regional Mayors the North will be transformed is a nonsense.
His actions in Manchester did lend large sums to developers to build high rise blocks of flats in the centre to sell to the better off. He was criticised for not building more social housing and for working with a few rich entrepreneurs who got richer. There was no great strategy to bring industry back to the once thriving cotton City, no new successful initiatives for training and better paid employment for the young people of Manchester.
In a debate I had on LBC yesterday morning I pointed out that a large chunk of the railway/ transport budget went on HS 2 but resulted in the railway never reaching Manchester and Leeds as originally planned. This Labour government has no intent to restore the whole original point of the project, better North-south links. The absurd latest planned spend of up to £102 bn swamps transport budgets and kills off plenty of cheaper better projects.
If he delegates benefit money and spend to Councils will there still be national rates and national policies? What incentives will there be for Mayors to get more people into work, and to make work more worthwhile?
If we are to start to grow as fast as the US it will take lower taxes and a pro enterprise and investment national policy. Letting Mayors borrow and spend more will not deliver the more prosperous private sector or industrial revival we need.
June 28, 2026
If Burnham sticks to the Ed Miliband rip off energy sanity, Kier’s Open Borders to low skilled and illegal immigration policies, his two tier zero deterrent justice system and his tax and regulate to death policies he and the UK will remain in Starmer and Reeve’s disastrous doom loop.
The last people we want deciding on “investments” is politicians and the state sector. Not their money nor they who benefit (unless they are corrupt or buying votes). So they care not what they pay nor what value they get. As we saw with HS2, the Covid “vaccines” and lockdowns, defence procurement, benefit levels…
June 28, 2026
“If we are to start to grow as fast as the US it will take lower taxes and a pro enterprise and investment, national policy.”
We currently have a hugely anti-enterprise and investment agenda. Hugely over taxed, over regulated, endless rigged markets (healthcare, schools, energy, banking, transport, employments, housing…and a mad rip off, intermittent energy policy with energy up to 5 times US prices.
Burnham needs to decide if he will stick with the Ed Miliband, Reeves, Lammy, Starmer and Phillipson lunacy or move toward sensible policies.
Phillipson has stated that if being a “spiteful class warrior” meant helping lift half a million children out of poverty and championing state education, she would wear the label with pride.
She has not lifted any children out of poverty and championing state education and making people pay four times over private education is market rigging and pure evil. Claiming the private schools were getting a tax advantage over state schools is clearly a blatant lie.
Perhaps Bridget is not spiteful in which case she must be extremely dim and totally deluded as to the effects of these evil policies. They will not even raise any net tax and will over load the state sector.
June 28, 2026
@Lifelogic +1
Then again surely that is the ‘Plan’ get someone else to pay for ones stupidity, when it gob its gone, it is not about having a tomorrow its about bribing people with their own money for the next election
June 28, 2026
Indeed.
Reports indicate that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s family made a 900% profit on the sale of a former council home. The property was reportedly purchased through the Right to Buy scheme before being sold for a significantly higher amount.The revelation has drawn scrutiny, particularly amid accusations that the current government is attempting to scale back the Right to Buy scheme.
I suppose to be left wing in politics almost invariable means you will have to be a grade one hypocrite and either A. You want to damage your country or B. You are not very bright.
June 28, 2026
JR says “The absurd latest planned spend of up to £102 bn swamps transport budgets and kills off plenty of cheaper better projects.”
Politicians like one (usually appalling value) Grand Project that they can refer to easily like HS2 in interviews. Listing 300 investment in various, far better, small projects is no so good for them in interviews or to buy votes.
Fixing the total backlog of all potholes, resurfacing and road defects on local roads in England and Wales is estimated to cost £18.6 billion over 10 years or so. A hugely better investment they could remover all those road blockages, bus lanes, bike lanes, anti car traffic lights and other modern and usually idiotic idiotic traffic blocking measures too. The car and soo. self driving door to door cars and trucks are far more important than trains. They will need more and better road space.
June 28, 2026
Once you realise that they no longer represent the indigenous common working man…..well, than it all makes sense
June 28, 2026
Manchester. No, let’s have some Thatcher ism tried tested and works a treat
Eyeliner Bendey Burnham is part of the problem, not the solution.
June 28, 2026
Ian Wragg – Thatcherism, now classed as an ideology that asks that a budget looks at earnings and expenditure in a joined up way. Something the bulk of the UK’s Households do daily so as to get to tomorrow. Proven to work. Socialism fights tomorrow by killing the source of tomorrow – earning
June 28, 2026
We essentially need to halve the size of the state sector and make sure the rest efficiently delivers things of real and positive not negative value for a change.
June 28, 2026
Good Morning My Lord,
It seems to me that, everything I have heard from Mr Burnham, will just make the nation poorer and more divided.
I suspect that we already pay a greater percentage of the tax take in the South East compared to the north of the country and therefore, already subsidise the north of the country. Forcing us to pay even more tax to send up North, will breed resentment.
More government is seldom the answer to any problem. I suspect we need the state to get out of the way and allow people to start businesses and to keep more of their own money.
In many ways, the Loddon Bridge Gyratory roundabout is a metaphor for the country and the government.
The traffic flows ok when the traffic lights are working and controlling the flow but, when the lights aren’t working, the traffic seems to flow better with less congestion. Perhaps I am just daft but, although there is a little more risk without the lights, the overall outcome is often better.
Reply Agreed. Roundabouts are better than traffic lights. Traffic lights on roundabouts dominate and hold us up.
June 28, 2026
Cliff.. Wokingham. – a great metaphor! even a roundabout is a failure (cheap yes), but a failure in long term costs by restricting the flows. Does anything that is simply there to inhibit a flow, therefore increase travelling time, commercial costs get to be as effective as an under or over continuous flow?
Remove money from the economy in taxes, the economy stalls and there is less tax to take
The same shower are now wanting to move out of Shute end and find new premises, they looked at the old M&S building which they own.
Analise the Reading/Wokingham Road, you will see 4 cycle lanes(2 each side), yet only 2 lanes for motor vehicles(1 in each direction). Then look at the volumes.
June 28, 2026
Yes Ian, the Reading Wokingham Road is a blueprint for how not to do it.
I see the empire builders are talking about several councils, including Wokingham, Bracknell, Maidenhead and Swindon, to form a Thames Valley Mayoral area. More layers and more money spent.
June 28, 2026
Yes JR but the new £ multimillion roundabouts often have lights too, zebra crossing, bike lanes and cause dangerous confusion and congestion.
9 The UK’s first Dutch-style roundabout, located at the junction of Fendon Road and Queen Edith’s Way in Cambridge, cost £2.4 million to build.The project famously went over budget from an early estimate of £800,000. Delays and rising costs were primarily attributed to unpredicted utility works, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other construction challenges.The layout was designed to improve safety for vulnerable road users. It features:A raised, protected red cycle lane wrapping around the outside.Zebra crossings set back from the junction, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists over motorists.
£2.4 m would built about 12 decent detached houses.
June 28, 2026
Cliff
Just wait until they put Traffic lights on the Woosehill roundabout, Original consultation went out couple of years ago, they are now suggesting a traffic light controlled pedestrian crossing on the A329, 50 yards from the Eastern/Wokingham Town side of the roundabout,
Also Restricting the two lanes down to one on the Dual feeder road that goes from the present roundabout to the Woosehill estate (the only major road that feeds this huge estate), so that another traffic light pedestrian crossing can be put 50 yards from the roundabout.
A cycle lane is proposed to go around the roundabout with cyclist priority,
Then a (money making) 20Mph speed limit on the A329 Reading Road opposite the present Shute End offices.
More £ millions to be spent that will make more traffic congestion.
No money to fix the endless potholes though !
Reply Yes a dreadful proposal and another nasty attack on drivers. When I was MP I used the Woosehill roundabout as an example of a successful junction to be copied. Council officers moaned that it had been designed with excess capacity and clearly wanted to wreck it.
June 29, 2026
BA,
Good grief… You would think the local authorities have cash to burn.
June 28, 2026
Manchesterism sounds like Townhallism. It’s hardly likely to free up the nation’s entrepreneurs and businesspeople from the yoke of heavy taxation and regulation that supresses real wealth creation and innovation. It sounds more like a recipe for increased corruption, nepotism and vote rigging.
June 28, 2026
As usual on this blog the info brought by Sir John is ultra biased. Can he really not have ever studied what mayors do in other countries? British mayors are either essentially ceremonial or in case of London, Manchester and 12 other cities what those are responsible for is practically unknown to the rest of the population.
Therefore Wanderer’s reaction is not surprising. Sir John would be more sensible if he were to tell us what has been good and bad in those places where the mayor is elected (increased accountability, locals possibly voting on local problems, but also budget limited by central government).
insituteforgovernment and commonslibrary.parliament.uk have interesting reports (pros and cons) on the topics.
Reply I may well write about the disastrous mayoralty in London which I suffer under. No new housebuilding at all in greater London, massive waste of money, poor management of public transport, expensive anti vehicles policies, poor leadership of police, failure to maintain bridges. London was better without an executive Mayor.
June 28, 2026
“essentially ceremonial” says hefner.
Manchester, Birmingham London’s and othet city Mayors oversee budgets worth billions.
“ultra biased”… hefner speak for any view he disagrees with.
June 28, 2026
Did you actually read what I wrote? I was making a distinction between plain-vanilla ceremonial mayors and elected mayors? Capisce.
June 28, 2026
Did you actually read what John wrote? You certainly didn’t address his points but just adopted a contrarian position and demand he do some academic analysis that did not address any local/UK concerns.
June 29, 2026
You may not have heard of various city mayors hefner but those of us who live in certain cities are very well aware of who they are and how much money they waste on their pet projects..
PS Very impressed with your Italian language skills.
June 29, 2026
dixie, And why should I follow in the direction that Sir John introduced? He was criticising Manchesterism. Fine. But looking at other countries, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, … there are plenty of places with a central government that does not interfere in all topics but allow States, Provinces, Länder, Regions, Comunidades autonomas, … to not only define their needs but to levy their own taxes and are responsible for economic development, transport infrastructure, vocational training (sometimes whole education system), health provision, land use planning, … with all decisions taken at a much more local level than in England and Wales.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk 24/01/2023 ‘Local government taxation’.
June 29, 2026
@host – so you allow sarcasm in Italian but not Cantonese .. noted for future
June 29, 2026
Love how you always alter your angle of attack hefner when your original argument is challenged.
9
Maybe now tell us…are you in favour of centralised government or devolved local powers?
June 30, 2026
In debates (that I thought Sam, Edward2, Peter2 and aliases were keen on) there usually is a motion and a response using challenging/contrarian arguments. See oxford-union.org for examples.
I am sorry to realise that the debates you want are more like those in the CCP or within the defunct Praesidium of the Soviet Union.
June 28, 2026
An expansion of Manchesterism could be designed to break the country into competing municipal fiefdoms. Larger cities would vie with each other for national funds or revenue-raising powers. Towns within their orbit would vie with each other for scraps from the cities; villages would do likewise to get crumbs from the towns. All the while central power would be strengthed by the regional and local division.
Meanwhile if the premise is a “north-south” divide, it is mistaken. Poverty and wealth are found in pockets, rather than across regions. So many small towns in southern England, where I am, have charity-shop filled high streets, lousy services, poor transport, “problem areas”, lack of affordable housing etc. It doesn’t matter that the City of London is only 60 miles away, it’s wealth never trickles down and out to “the south”.
June 28, 2026
How do you run a bus service in Manchester and then become PM with no leadership debate or election
What away to run a country
More wasteful policies from this Labour government
June 28, 2026
They couldn’t find one suitable candidate from the current 403 labour MPs ….thats sad
June 28, 2026
There’s even some talk about bringing back the other miliband, making him a lord and cabinet member …its so bizarre it might just happen
June 28, 2026
I’ve seen enough devolution already – it’s a recipe for more expense, more waste and potential corruption.
Creating more mayors means another level of costly bureaucracy.
Police commissioners have been an expensive experiment and they can’t / won’t even crack down on basic criminality. They ignore the hard crimes to solve but spend too much time on woke.
If Burnham is going to send more money and resources north that suggests the South will be robbed to allow this to happen – yet another injustice on the hard working south.
With policies that are being suggested then we should demand full clarity and a general election!
June 28, 2026
Spot on Steve
June 28, 2026
Our borough council wastes far too much money and ignores us far too much already, I want them having far less control over our affairs, not more
June 28, 2026
The whole concept of delegation of borrowing, spending and tax powers to regional authorities is a nonsense in the UK as such regional authorities are not allowed to go bust or forced to restructure as is the case in the US. In the US if a city or a state borrows taxes and spends too much there is no automatic federal bailout and the expectation is services will simply be cut. The consequences of incompetent overspending fall squarely on the local people who elected the state or city govt.
In the UK that would never happen – especially if it’s a Labour govt in power and Labour or other leftist local govt (as of course it would always be) which went bust. So burnham’s plan is just a recipe for yet more UK taxes, borrowing and state spending. The opposite of what’s need for prosperity.
Burnham seems to want changes (from the changes which the Labour govt claims it was already elected to make). So we need a general election.
Reply Wales and Scotland with devolved government and more public spending per head than national average still have worse growth and GDP per head levels than London.
June 28, 2026
Indeed!
June 28, 2026
The Most Reverend Sarah Mullally was recently appointed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury
Her tenure is being intensely scrutinized over systemic C of E safeguarding failures. Her predecessor resigned after covering up a prolific abuser, and Mullally has faced heavy criticism and a formal complaint for allegedly mishandling historical claims of a vicar’s sexual assaults. Furthermore, a Church tribunal has rebuked her for a “plainly wrong” safeguarding decision involving a different abusive priest
Despite these child abuse scandals, Mullally supports the Church’s £100 million slavery reparations fund, honouring a commitment sparked by the discovery that historical Church investments were heavily funded by transatlantic chattel slavery.
Simultaneously, many of her retired clergy are living in penury after devoting their lives to their parishioners. While the Church holds countless £billions in historic investments, these assets are apparently legally ring-fenced. Parish budgets remain heavily strained by dismal attendance and soaring maintenance costs, leaving clergy pensions failing to keep pace with the modern cost of living.
Mullaly should look after her retired vicars before she starts wokery payouts using C of E money
June 28, 2026
Much guff in the right-wing press this weekend about alleged “vulnerabilities” in Britain’s N Sea windfarms including non-existent Chinese components allegedly used in building our renewable infrastructure
Traditional N Sea oil and gas infrastructure is defined by concentrated, high-volume single points of failure. The UK relies on more than 200 high-visibility platforms and a handful of massive trunklines, such as the Langeled pipeline supplying the bulk of UK gas imports from Norway. A targeted kinetic attack or underwater explosive sabotage—as demonstrated by the Nord Stream bombings—instantly triggers a severe national energy crisis and catastrophic ecological fallout. Furthermore, these rigs carry highly volatile hydrocarbons, making them acutely vulnerable to airborne drones and explosive chain reactions.
Conversely, Britain’s onshore and offshore wind network benefits from massive structural redundancy. The thousands of individual turbines manufactured across Humberside and Lincolnshire (NOT China) are highly dispersed; destroying a handful of towers has negligible impact on the wider grid. However, wind infrastructure does suffer from consolidation at it’s transmission chokepoints.
The primary vulnerability lies in the substations and subsea high-voltage export cables that funnel gigawatts of power to the mainland. These subsea cables are physically thinner and less armoured than concrete-encased gas pipelines, making them soft targets for covert subsea interference, underwater drones, or accidental anchor-dragging.
Ultimately, while an oil rig attack threatens immediate resource depletion and an environmental disaster, a wind farm attack presents a purely electrical disruption mitigated by massive system redundancies.
Reply the big steel towers and the nacelles,the working mechanisms, are all imported. We just make some blades
June 28, 2026
@JR
If you want to look at how the UK partitions its wind industry:
Humberside (Hull) is the center for the aerodynamic components (carbon/fiberglass blade casting and turbine logistics) Once the nacelles, steel tower sections and the Hull blades arrive at Alexandra Dock, they are laid out, pre-assembled, and loaded onto specialized installation vessels to be taken out to North Sea windfarms
Teesport (Teesside) handles the heavy structural engineering (welding and rolling massive steel foundations) and serves as a prime staging ground for the largest projects in the North Sea. For instance, it handles the arrival and marshalling of the massive 1,670-tonne monopiles
The Port of Nigg (Scotland) dominates the electrical cable manufacturing and massive assembly logistics for both fixed-bottom and floating turbines. Windfarm work has replaced Nigg’s previous building and assembly of oil rigs
Reply I know and reported accurately the import of the key components minus the blades
June 30, 2026
Connecting up wind farms and solar to the grid can require about 180 times more vastly expensive wiring costs. This as they are so scattered about the country and sea plus the cables have to be able cope with full max wind or sun output when they only deliver circa 25% of this on average then the fossil fuel backup wiring too. Vastly more expensive than connecting a couple of large power plants.
June 28, 2026
Even the concrete for fixed offshore wind turbines is now imported all the way from China.
June 28, 2026
Concrete is highly carbon-intensive; its primary binder, cement, accounts for about 8% of global human-made emissions ….renewables don’t make net-zero sense
June 30, 2026
Not that a bit more CO2 tree, crop and plant food and the gas of life is even a serious issue. But yes renewables save very little CO2 anyway when fully accounted for.
June 28, 2026
Exposed, unattended and remote wind turbines and all the undersea cabling is wide open to attack by today’s air and undersea drones. North Sea gas is also vulnerable to attack but unlike renewables has never been sold as “secure” and is at least manned. The most secure fuel is our own coal which can be mined from the mainland and can be easily and cheaply stored. Nuclear can also be made secure by building, if necessary, SMRs and micro reactors below ground. Gas (methane) can be accessed on the mainland by fracking and the caverns that the Royal Society proposes to store hydrogen can be used for secure long-term storage. There is absolutely no security in putting all our energy eggs into one basket, electrification, and then relying upon weather dependent, chaotically intermittent power from thousands of Chinese supplied wind turbines spread out over half the North Sea
June 28, 2026
@SG – assembly of foreign manufactured goods is not what is meant by manufacture by the host nation.
I refer you to the Norwegian experience of Chinese buses “the manufacturer had direct digital access to critical power and battery control systems via mobile networks, theoretically allowing the manufacturer to remotely disable or halt the buses” This is similar to the concerns raised by Trump with Polestar vehicles it is now common practice for all vehicle producers to remain in control which become concerning when it means foreign State control. Its an endless list of similar situation of not control the safety and security of the Country
The UK last week were paying 17 times the going rate for energy through the ‘interconnectors’ because the energy was from foreign generally nationalised and controlled facilities. Predominately the wind farms operated in the UK are foreign state own operations. Being put in the position of being held hostage for the supply of critical basics, by the political whims of other nations is not what is meant by a UK Parliament keeping the Nation Safe and Secure
June 28, 2026
SG : “….a wind farm attack presents a purely electrical disruption mitigated by massive system redundancies.”
All the exposed, remote, unmanned wind turbines in the North Sea could be attacked simultaneously with thousands of airborne drones and their cables by hundreds of undersea drones. There would at the same time be hacking attacks on our national grid. What makes this so insecure and dangerous is that the woke in charge of our energy have decided that everything is to be electrified “to save the planet” and our main source of electricity is to come from weather dependent chaotically intermittent renewables supplied by a single country, China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”. It is not possible to design a more insecure energy system.
June 28, 2026
We certainly do not have massive system redundancies rather the reverse. Scotland largely relies on one rather aging gas powered station and one aging nuclear plant in order to keep the grid stable. See the excellent Kathryn Porter videos etc. (Watt Logic). Order delays, even on CCGT gas turbine plants, can be several years. Burnham need to move Miliband and reverse his bonkers agenda now.
June 28, 2026
I have not seen the “right wing guff” you mention so can only comment on the guff you present above.
“non-existent Chinese components allegedly used in building our renewable infrastructure”
– so you can identify the sourcing of the high value components – gearboxes, generators, control and power electronics ..?
Note The UK only sources 36% of plant and turbine where a large chunk of the latter is the fibre-glass blades (see eg “Guide to an Offshore Wind Farm”).
You agree that both approaches ultimately concentrate shore connection to a few pipes/cables so both are equally vulnerable to underwater attack. But if I were to attempt disrupting things an aerial attack on wind generators would be far simpler and cheaper than air attack on oil platforms and especially underwater attack on subsea targets. All you’d need to do would be to damage one blade on a generator using drones launched from a “commercial” vessel which would draw no suspicion until the launch compared to submarine.
It’s a good job we are forced to maintain the parallel hydrocarbon power stations – a true systems redundancy. Imagine if the only backup were interconnectors to the continent, then we’d be truly screwed.
June 29, 2026
There are only 6 North Sea wind farm shore connection points:
Blyth / East Sleekburn, Seaton Sluice, Newcastle, Bicker Fen, Lowestoft & Winterton-on-Sea, Dumpton Gap / Broadstairs.
Some carry more load than others but the loss of any on e would be highly damaging. It would not take much to mount simultaneous attacks on several.
June 29, 2026
I list UK’s 6 connection points in another comment. I note also that Norway, Denmark and Germany have only two each. 12 in total. Not too difficult to cut the lot.
I’d also point out that imbalance in a wind turbine rotor would cause it to be shut down immediately and this could be achieved easily using a cheap drone to damage a blade.
June 28, 2026
Results I guess will depend upon the quality of the Mayor with more devolution.
Given the present system of allocating money out of general taxation and the legal rules on must have expenditure responsibilities (Social care etc etc) I just see it as yet another layer of control, another layer of expensive management, another risk of dodgy dealing with contracts going to family members, mates, or political allies.
Good grief have we not had enough of this sort of waste and inefficiency, the system is broken now, if we are going to change it, then let us do it in a cost effective and controlled manner which would give us choice and value for money.
All this redistribution nonsense is encouraging the growing something for nothing entitlement syndrome that is destroying our country.
June 28, 2026
This is just the latest Labour attempt to split up England, presumably to divide and rule. The answer is an English parliament or assembly to defend the country’s interests against those of the UK or its other constituent parts.
The English are 87% of the UK. Not since apartheid South Africa have 87% of a population been denied democratic equality.
June 28, 2026
It sounds like another incarnation of “Powerhouse of the North”, which took thousands of well-paid jobs from the towns in the North and moved them to the Northern cities, leaving the towns like where I live in greater poverty. When politicians meddle, things only get worse. In my opinion, the longer we are without a PM, the better off we will be.
June 28, 2026
Christine
Indeed I well remember the large Government (taxpayer) Funded financial incentives given to many Companies to move to different so called regeneration areas way back in the 1960’s and 70’s,
Many took advantage of that and moved from the outskirts of London to South Wales at the time, and thus made their then workers redundant.
Indeed I was made redundant during the last year of my indentured engineering apprenticeship for that very reason, fortunately I did find another Company who took on the responsibly for the completion of my apprenticeship, but many would not.
It took decades for those businesses that did move to recover from the loss of the skilled people they sacked, and many simply either moved again, or failed completely.
June 29, 2026
Several countries in Europe have functioned well without governments for long periods. Best example is Belgium, which hosts the capital of Europe.
June 28, 2026
The same theme we have seen from all UK Parliaments this century, spend, spend, spend, and then what can we invent to spend even more money on. Then we get tax, tax, tax and what other convoluted ways can we tax.
Not once has there been any focus of expenditure, on real budgeting in seeking out results from all these billions spent, getting real reinvestable returns. Yet the UK Parliament/Government demands that every individual in the Country, budgets, controls their spending to release the money for them to take by force of Law in taxes. It is always someone else’s fault that there isn’t enough money to squander to bribe the electorate with their own money.
You start to get to thinking there is not a single brain between the lot of them, Parliament/Government as they can’t think, grasp or contemplate that it is they they are doing the destruction causing the nation’s problems. They can’t comprehend that money is earned, and when they destroy the means to earn, remove money from the economy they destroy the Nation. There is no tax in the World that can replace earning, even though the UK Parliament and its Government seem to have the disease that tax is earning.
Parliament/Government must be taking hallucination drugs to believe that they without experience, the education and the know how, can achieve things that can’t be achieved better cheaper more efficiently by others that do it to ‘earn’ a living.
June 28, 2026
The Nationalised transport system in Manchester, with its capped fares. May sound like an effective initiative by the Mayor, but it is substantially funded by the Nations Taxpayer through Central Government . Or in other words those without local transport or buses get to fund the capped prices in Manchester – smoke & mirrors. The Mayor of Manchester claimed this nationalisation has a victory for Manchester, which it is someone else pays.
June 28, 2026
The concept of regional mayor ‘metro mayor’ was introduce outside of london by the tory government. The tories also introduced the police & crime commissioners …..a direction of travel that, in my view, weaken local government and local democracy
A policy which needs to be reversed …scrap regional mayors and police commissioners
June 28, 2026
Does anybody remember the regional assemby(s) that were abolished in 2008 …..we’re reinventing failure
June 28, 2026
105 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK yesterday 27th June 2026
June 28, 2026
The point of communism is not to work – not in any sense of the word.
It is here because “We had to think of the people who did not vote for us now that we’ve won a landslide election.”
So the people who did vote Tory gave up on voting Tory because they were ignored and disobeyed (the Boris Wave)
The Communists have taken over and we are now dying. The country is literally dying.
June 28, 2026
The best way to transform the North is to delegate money back to the people who earn it, rather than in tax.
If individuals think it’s worth it, they will speculate and invest in new and existing businesses. If they believe their hard work and risk will just be hoovered up in tax they won’t bother.
June 29, 2026
Dave
I think many people are already at the point you raise now “Why Bother” or they intend to go abroad.
June 29, 2026
What can one say? It is all so bally obvious. Local government has always been prone to local politicians and council officials helping their friends get rich at rate and tax payers’ expense. It is not necessarily socialism, just plain corruption. The quality of people and the controls needed to prevent it are weaker at local government level than at national level. But Burnham is a rampant socialist. At national level, in the name of socialist principle he can and will be as wasteful or worse than the most corrupt council. Neither the corrupt nor socialists have the slightest compunction about wasting other people’s money. In Burnham we have both in one package. A true socialist believes all wealth should be in the hands of the state, not of private individuals – unless the individuals are the party faithful.
June 29, 2026
there was a referendum about devolution in the north east of England, which was massively against. so much so that planned similar referendums in the other parts of the country were scrapped. so apart from anything else Burnhams plans are anti democratic.
just sounds like more public sector waste to me.
June 29, 2026
correct
June 29, 2026
Burnham’s plan to make Manchester the capital of the north is bound to fail and cause lots of resentment. the people of Newcastle, Sunderland, Teesside, Liverpool, York, and so on, are going to be furious. It will stoke up regional tensions in lots of ways. At least they had a common enemy in London, moving the focal point to Manchester will lead to lots of upset.
July 2, 2026
Don’t you think he’ll merge Liverpool and Manchester? It’s been on the cards a while. Greater Leigh (it’s in the middle), perhaps so the political Disciple of Leigh is immortalised.
July 5, 2026
I was raised in Manchester.It was a magical city then with well thought out planning of streets and buildings.Then came the nuevo planners who found it impossible to keep everything in context and hotch potch buildings flew up everywhere.We had a solid University and cultural surroundings which we as children could all feel we belonged to .The problem was it was an unequal society owned by the arrogant who put fathers occupation before individual achievement.
The children of ” the professions or well heeled” were given priority over the others and put down if they shone or sometimes effort turned around and credited to others.
I remember as a 9 year old remembering my times tables up to 12 after mum night by night helped me churn them out
The result was I excelled and the prize was to go out into the playground for extra time on my own, a method of putting achievers down.
We learned ,our knowledge was twisted and were made to look fools incomparison yo the slow paid for it’s ..We still remember bit now. just as bad but in a different way
.