Mr Burnham has given Labour a temporary boost, based on a message of general optimism. So far he has delivered very little.
His big offer to tackle social care, a burning passion of his, has been delayed more than a year and now may not appear until the next Manifesto. He has promised to offer everyone sleeping rough a bed indoors by Christmas, but we await how this will be done in every local Council area. He has promised Mauritius he still wants to give away Chagos and has agreed with the US President he cannot do that on the present deal. He has said it his personal view football fans should be allowed to drink on terraces, but government policy is still to ban that.
The big issues he needs to tackle in his Conference speech are migration, the budget sums , welfare and defence. Warm words and aspirations need to be fashioned into government policies, new laws, and government programmes backed by money. So far on the big subjects there is no change in government thinking and no new energy in the relevant departments.
He should reinstate the outgoing Conservative government law that an illegal migrant cannot claim asylum. He should revive Rwanda or some other place where he can deport illegals to. He needs to amend UK law to close off international law which impeded the Conservative government’s actions to stop the boats.
Whilst he cannot reveal the budget detail which is being much argued over, he should rule out more tax rises. The Labour Manifesto ruled out increases in the big 3 taxes, so Mr Burnham should add other taxes to the list. If he does not there will be continuing knocks to confidence, lack of investment and rich people leaving as before both Reeves tax raising events. He needs like his Chancellor to be strongly against more debt before the bond market swamps him.
This means he does need firm and realistic plans to control benefits. He needs to stop the growing build up of more young people on sick notes for life. He needs to make it more worthwhile to work.There are plenty of ways to reduce spending, including ones I have often set out here, adding up to tens of billions.
He needs to find a way with the Chancellor to get spending on defence to 3% of GDP more quickly, along with an urgent review from the Defence Secretary of the priorities for more spend and how to improve the speed and efficacy of the spend.
The speech doesn’t just need to set out a vision that has a bit more detail than general optimism. It needs to say what the big changes will be to the 2027-8 budget and the King’s Speech list of new laws which he has inherited. He has wasted the summer by not having a plan for government and not announcing any big changes to make people think things could get better. Government proceeds with annual plans. He is carrying out Starmer’s plan for 2026-7 because he couldn’t be bothered to change it. Does he have a better plan for next year?
September 28, 2026
A truly pathetic man pissing about with trivia like bus fares, alcohol at football grounds, pork scratchings, No 10 up North, making tea… while his economic doom loop policies and his vile two tier justice agenda continues apace.
The Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor says nobody must comment on Danny Tommo’s case as it could sway a jury before the trial. Yet yesterday we had the Burnham finding time on the BBC to ( comment on the accused ed)A truly pathetic interview by Laura K not even any serious question about elevating his wife to a new First Lady, his doom loop economic lunacy or questioning this accusation or racism and this surely contempt of court.
It is hard now not to hold the UK courts in total contempt as they tend to bring this on themselves almost every day with their selective two tier justice and their appalling general incompetence as with the obviously unsafe Lucy Letby convictions and serial denials of any appeals.
September 28, 2026
100 % agree re Lucy Letby.Its about time truth wasn’t equated with out of date titles (and from another country) and believed with that knowledge .I can’t believe how the principle of doubt has been overturned and the conviction has gone along with power.
September 28, 2026
Nothing in his speech about the prevention of ongoing terrorist attacks. We wait whith bated breath to see if the perpetrators of the Fairford heist are fast tracked in the same manner as the faaar rite anti immigration people.
Talk about bread and circuses, we have £2 bus fares and beer on the terraces.
Nothing about utilising our own oil and gas which could be extracted at preferential rates for uk consumers.
Money will be found to pay compensation to Mauritius because they can’t have Chagos, maybe a 10% reduction of the basic state pension or the cancellation of Motability cars to pay for it.
We wait in trepidation.
September 28, 2026
really the opposition in parliament with the most MP’s, the Conservatives, should be making much more noise about the totalitarian aspects of this regime, including multi tier justice, PM himself openly commenting on live court cases, plans to confiscate houses, determination to give every postcode a share of rapists, terrorists, murderers, use of anti terrorist rules against ordinary brits while not using them for actual terrorists.
September 28, 2026
I agree Iain, they put in a law that if you can’t sell your home and you rent it out, then you want to sell it again you can’t rent again for a whole year. Then within that year if its empty they can confiscate it six months in to rent it to their client state! Then if its held up in probate what then? You can’t sell without probate? What if it is a genuine second home because you’re renting near work and have a family home? We are becoming an envious and spiteful Country set against movers and shakers and job creators.
September 28, 2026
the probate office are completely incompetent, and when they put the wrong info on the probate form you cannot sell the house but still get charged council tax.
public sector screw ups leads to the public sector getting more money, and nobody ever gets sacked.
September 28, 2026
£4 miilion so far in legal costs to give us 15 clearly unsafe (to say the least) convictions is hardly good value.
September 28, 2026
The real issues Burnham and Laura K are:- the insanity of net zero, reversing the doom loop policies of tax and regulate to death, the vast size of the mainly parasitic state, the open borders, killing DEI and all the misguided woke lunacies, restoring free speech, stop damagingly rigging markets like education, transport, housing, banking, energy, healthcare… and the out of control benefits bill which encourages fecklessness.
September 28, 2026
Bridget Phillipson interviewed by Camilla Tominey yesterday. Bridget “I respect the rights of people to choose private education” sure but by making them pay four times over to do so you prevent many from having that choice whether you respective or not are you too thick to see this?
Phillipson currently “serves” as the Labour Party Chairman and Women and Equalities Minister. So Bridget which is it you want “Women or Equalities” it can hardly be both can it? Just like being Secretary of State for Energy Security AND Net Zero (the dire, deluded dope Miatta Fahnbulleh PPE yet again holds this bonkers self contradictory position).
September 28, 2026
Phillipson’s bitter, vile and spiteful education vandalism will not even raise any net funds for the state – not that they would spend them sensibly even if it did. Over 40,000 have left the private sector so far it seems costing the state sector over half a £ billion PA and this will increase further many good schools have had to close.
No freedom, no real choice, no money, no jobs, no affordable energy, no free speech, no real defence, no decent lad amd order, rigged market everywhere, open borders, DEI lunacy, tax borrow and piss down the drain seems to be the Labour agenda.
Is this likely to go well for the under three years they now have left?
September 28, 2026
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband faced sharp backlash from opposition politicians after he was photographed shaking hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at the United Nations General Assembly in New York four days ago.
Iranian link to the serious RAF base attempted attack is seems 2 days ago. Ed is almost as much of a danger at the Foreign Office as he was at energy.
September 28, 2026
Reminds me of Jack Straw filmed shaking hands with Robert Mugabe in September 2004. You’ll have to Google it to see the reason why as our host, quite rightly, might not print his excuse.
September 28, 2026
+1.
When will Labour finally be honest and admit that raising taxes and red tape any further will produce less tax revenue not more. Their choice is to cut spending now or be forced to do so by the markets very soon indeed. At the same time they need to ditch net zero, cut red tape and stop and deport all the net cost immigration.
Are they really too dim to see this are are they trying to wreck the UK?
September 28, 2026
Phillipson in her interviews “I will not take any lectures from people who have moved to live as tax exiles”. The lesson the dope needs to learn is that increasing taxes from here will get the government less tax not more as more high tax payers and their businesses will sensible choose to leave.
Surely even the spiteful Bridget and John Healey (social and political science Cantab) can at least try grasp this reality?
September 28, 2026
Truly taking us back to the 1970s with the brain drain. However they will not suffer any strike by the NUM as it now numbers less than 200 members.
September 28, 2026
‘Doom loop’ is doing a lot of work here. Two mentions in your first post and one above.
September 28, 2026
It is the best description of this Labour government’s agenda. You would say “positive feedback” in engineering. You do something stupid and that damages the economy and the economic probems get worse, so you increase taxes or red tape yet again and things get even worse as even more of the rich and hard working leave to work less – rapidly leading to doom.
Positive feedback sounds far too positive it almost never it.
September 28, 2026
Last night government sources told The Times that measures to pay for the Prime Minister’s social care reforms could include scrapping the pensions triple lock.
Always the pensioner, I’ve got just about enough to live on but can’t claim any form of top up because I have a few pounds in the bank, but these pensioners who’ve never done a days work in their lives can claim bucket loads of cash makes me sick to the stomach, then liebour come along with a big money tree to look after the lazy feckless, then Burnham wants to scrap the triple lock the sooner a General Election the better so we can vote these buffoons out the quicker our country and economy can start to rebuild itself again like the beginning of the 80s did and consign liebour/libdums/ and others into history
Reply I said on X today the small savings on triple lock get nowhere near paying for free social care
September 28, 2026
This government are already undermining the triple lock very significantly by freezing personal allowances all of them income, CGT, IHT and so taxing it back, attacking the winter heating allowance, pushing up energy costs with carbon taxes and market rigging and large increases in council and other back door taxes…they will doubtless further attack them with their delayed social care agenda.
2
September 28, 2026
He wasn’t made to look unable to lead and stood up to Kemi competently .The essence comes now.Kemi was vocal re defence and she is right,so how is he going to balance the books?
September 28, 2026
Who is this competent person of whom you speak
September 28, 2026
You are not paying attention Ian. In response to another comment.
…anoncephalics ie no brainers.. survive these days,that is a very smart medical breakthrough.. language dear contributors.
No one will ever take these comments seriously with continuous hyperbole.
September 28, 2026
If ever someone was out of their depth, Burnham has to be the number one example.
I’m sure many will see him as a hero to the working classes, because of beer on the terraces.
The Soviets used cheap vodka to subdue the masses!!
Given the enormity of our problems, should a small issue such as beer on the terraces feature in a serious speech anyway?
Rough sleeping is an important issue, granted, but I have volunteered for a charity over many years that has worked with the homeless and it is not a straightforward issue.
Many find themselves on the streets, because of their own choice of lifestyle and one I’m afraid successive governments have done nothing to stop, and the left certainly won’t, and that is drugs.
More modern day bread and circuses, and any bad effects can be blamed on other people being rich.
Breakdown in relationships, with shortage of housing stock (which will get worse as the rental market decreases) means one half of the partnership struggles to re-home themselves. Without family to offer them interim housing they go on the street.
Burnham will of course use this issue to push home his agenda of everything being the fault of ‘the rich’ and the social injustice they have caused, and nothing to do with other peoples own choices.
There will be no mention of housing shortages due to increased population, and newcomers being given preference over the natives. Nor I suspect on the fact Labour’s policies have forced many Landlords to quit.
In my family alone two young people have had to go home and live with their parents because their Landlord can no longer afford to carry on, and there is nothing else available on the market. Where would they be if there was no family to take them in??
September 28, 2026
If they’ve gone back to parents their parents should do them a favour and charge to rent their room £500 and put it in a high income ISA for them so they can save deposits and not just fritter it away. They should encourage them to take extra work a couple of evenings per week or on a Saturday, all the stuff my parents encouraged me to do.
September 28, 2026
He has said nothing about matters which people who care about this country and their future need to know what he thinks. He is interested in social care because he has just experienced what a lot of us have over the years, a parent dying of a disease which needs help in paying for care. Would he have been so interested if he had not been in this position? Also, the constant attack on pensioners who have paid their way and have small private pensions to avoid claiming benefits and are now finding themselves taxed on any rises they receive because the personal allowance has not been increased for years. The personal allowance is the problem here. The new asylum for women to be fast tracked to come here is rubbish. How can any woman in Afghanistan make it known she wants to leave when she is not allowed to leave the house without a man with her? It is a way of bringing in more men as well as women and the women will be under the control of the men as is going on now. We need a general election now to get rid of the large number of Labour MPs and hopefully, get a Reform government who need to get the Tories on board somehow with Nigel Farage in control.
September 28, 2026
They will bring women here then they will bring their daily over a right to a family life that will be
Husband ,In laws, 6 or more kids , uncle and aunts they will will want to bring in their relatives
its happening now with Afghanistan’s
September 28, 2026
Our Andeh has learned at the knee of Blair that presentation outweighs delivery in the parliamentary party and beyond.
Talk a good game and keep repeating it.
September 28, 2026
The only thing i wish to hear from Burnham’s big speech is. I resign and we shall have a general election.
September 28, 2026
Sir Peter Lampl – not I think a man of the right – has now said he’s leaving the uk as the traffic in London makes the city unlivable. He is right, it’s amazing how bad it is. This is brought on by Labour’s dreadful Khan, who has made London the slowest city in the world. Sir Peter makes the excellent point – though we rarely hear it – that if you can’t quickly and preferably comfortably from one meeting to the next and to and from the office, it’s very difficult to do business. Khan, Labour, the left, the blob take the wealth & tax base producing segment of the population far too much for granted. Dangerous times.
September 28, 2026
“@Richard1
Well said
September 28, 2026
Ah, I must get to Specsavers, I read that as Burnham’s big peach?
I don’t think Labour’s Dear Leader has any clue how to run a government. I think his gifting responsibility to Mayors is simply his way of saying I can’t do this, over to you chaps.
It will be interesting to see if the latest headlines regarding the potential terrorist attack at Fairford gets a mention. If it does it will be confined to the tremendous work our security services did in preventing the attack. I doubt the farmer who actually stopped the incident will be afforded any mention or praise for her swift actions.
September 28, 2026
Wes Sweeting acknowledged her contribution but said she did not know the complete story and meanwhile, when interviewed, he adopted the attitude normally adopted by criminals of “no comment”.
September 28, 2026
Overheard at a No 10 somewhere in England.
“Right, so here’s the plan. Many of us worry about old age and how we will cope if we suffer before we pop our clogs and close relatives probably worry even more about losing their inheritance if care homes are involved. So we’ll appear to be altruistic by introducing a special tax for social care (a bit like the 1% increase in NICs [National Insurance Contributions] ‘Goodhearted’ Gordon Brown implemented in his April 2003 Budget exclusively for the NHS) which will look as though for both rich and poor the same level of care will be provided, but by getting everybody to pay for it we will ensure richer people hang on to more of their money and we can then craftily increase Inheritance Tax thus gaining a lot more tax for us to waste. Good Manchester-brewed drinks all round, comrades”.
September 28, 2026
Beeb trumpets MrHealey’s intention to “re-industrialise” UK.No going back to coal(rightly as our deposits cannot
beautomatively extracted) but no mention of urgently pushing ahead on oil and gas riches and Nuclear.
Ist quarter 2026 our electricity exports averaged 15.0p per kwh our imports 24.5 per kwh.The cost of my
electricity use for August 26.7 per kwh.Not including the 14.76p for “grid/network” charge.Of course the
impact of the latter reduces when winter heating demand kicks in
September 28, 2026
For those with shares Burnham’s stumbling inactivity will be depressing. The Stock market has not only dipped due to the ineptitude of labour’s policies, it is well below what it should have been if the upward spike had continued as normal.
Confidence is very low and it won’t take much, like a tax and spend budget, to see that confidence dissipitate altogether.
For the Burnham bounce to continue the chancellor needs to pull more than a rabbit out of his hat, otherwise the PM will start to wish he had gone to the country already, before the polls mirrored the stock market.
September 28, 2026
Anyone with a brain can see Burnham is a lightweight. I guarantee in his speech, he will not tackle the big issues, that really matter to people. He majors in the minors, like bus fares and a VAT cut on electricity for 6 months and beer on ther football terraces.
He has made no major and important decisions, like locking himself in an office with Healey, and getting serious about cutting government spending, then cutting taxes which is the only way the UK economy will grow.
In time he will be seen as worse then Starmer.
September 28, 2026
Our latest Chancellor Healey has said that UK Capital Gains tax is lower than others and it looks likely that he will increase rates. Unfortunately, he omits to say that Gordon Brown took away indexation on the untrue grounds that it was too complicated. It was actually very easy to apply a table of inflation and multiply this to the sum due. Other countries actually discount Gains over 30 years completely. In this country investors in BTL who have bought 30 years ago will be paying slmost 3 times the 40% he is likely to impose in real terms. Australia is apparently thinking of bringing in indexation.
September 28, 2026
If Healey wants to balance the books with a CGT increase, it will have to be enormous. It will of course change people’s attitudes so bring in little more, but Labour don’t seem to appreciate human behaviour.
September 28, 2026
Sorry. Inflation over 34 years is only 230% according to the Bank of England. Not for housing costs of course.
September 28, 2026
Waiting for the Home Secretary enlightening us all today on what she is to force on to the British people, vague details of which are currently circulating in various reports. Reopening of Resettlement programmes, fast tracking of people being given access to legal routes. We’re told Afghan women & girls amongst them. ( The last time I looked, around 38.000 Afghan citizens have been resettled already with most of those already having settled accommodations too. ) Those with critical medical needs. The fast tracking of Indefinite Leave To Remain, citizenship and permanent settlement. Sponsorship schemes in addition. Thousands to come from various conflict zones from around the world. Sounds like utter madness. Utter contempt. How can they possibly avoid tax increases. Who voted for this.
September 28, 2026
Occasionally I ponder what Party Conferences are for. Obviously no useful or meaningful information or ideas are passed across. Good for a bit of drinking, glad handing and slap n tickle.
A means of keeping the faithful grunts motivated. Otherwise no one is fooled. Forgotten by the end of the week.
Reply Not so. They are platforms to launch new policies and to get feedback from the members who are the volunteer supporters who need to be persuaded
September 28, 2026
They are saying warning shots over benefits. Healey has said “social security must always be there for those who can never work. BUT for everyone else, benefits should be a “bridge to work”, to wider participation, to a better life, not a trap that people can’t escape”.
Sunak used to say he wanted a ‘bridge to work’, a ‘National Service Scheme’ – trouble is the right doesn’t really support compulsory placement for all – not many of our kids aren’t studying or don’t work already – when the left are proposing the same scheme, you know it’s coming. Will it be targeted at just the neets? Competitive placement in the military 30,000 spots. Community volunteering 25 days pa (NHS, Police, Fire, Local Charities), a shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our Country” Sunak. Remember this when you hear similar soundbites this week.
September 28, 2026
526 illegals arrived yesterday …..origin & intent unknown
September 28, 2026
To ensure at the beginning to have an Illegal in every postcode.
September 28, 2026
What from the headline, would think this suggests?
“Orders for three floating dry docks, worth £6bn, to maintain the Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet at Faslane will go to a UK-based shipbuilder, the chancellor has confirmed.”
Reality the Ship Buider is 100% Spanish State owned. Taxes and Profits go to the Spanish Exchecor.
So the Spanish State enjoys the gain from the UK Taxpayer, who never seesthe money circulate and contribute to the UK
September 28, 2026
I’m hoping the PM doesn’t make any more important decisions other than whether there should be alcohol at football matches or the cost of bus fares.