Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

  Being a skilled communicator is not enough. The incoming prime minister needs a clearer political direction Daily Telegraph 19/07/26 There is something peculiar about the coronation of Andy Burnham. It is not just that his ascension is without historical parallel. Or that it has occurred against the backdrop of a prime minister falling within two years after winning the third-largest majority in over a century. It is that we are about to get a prime minister and yet know very little about what we are getting. To be fair to Burnham, he did give a speech early on returning to Westminster. He has talked about rolling back “40 years of Thatcherism”. We hear much about “Manchesterism”. There’s a promise for “growth in every postcode”. However, journalists didn’t get the chance to ask him questions. And there’s not much in the way of detail. Clive Lewis – one of his earliest public supporters – has criticised U-turns made by Burnham. Positions on Waspi, rejoining the EU, immigration ...

Even given the low bar set by recent prime ministers, it was a shockingly poor speech from Labour’s new leader Daily Telegraph 17/07/26 Was that it, then, the great reveal, the sum total of Andy Burnham’s plan for a more hopeful Britain? A paean to Neil Kinnock, of all people, the failed socialist Labour leader turned Eurocrat extraordinaire ? An almost dementedly egotistical claim that his own coronation, and the death warrant to “neoliberalism” it supposedly entails, heralds “the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years” – apparently more momentous even than the supply-side revolution, Big Bang, Blairism, 9/11, devolution, the rise of the Blob, the financial crisis, the expenses scandal, Brexit, Covid and the emergence of populism? If that might be dismissed as just a little presumptuous, what about our incoming Prime Minister’s explicit repudiation of the 1980s, and thus of the consumerism, individual liberation, social mobility, mass home and asset ownership and ...

Andy Burnham has set out a 1970s vision for Britain in his first speech as Labour leader. Daily Telegraph 17/07/26 The prime minister-in-waiting said that under Margaret Thatcher, the country had “surrendered control of the essentials – housing, water, energy, transport – and left people exposed to higher costs”. Opening the door to nationalising public services, he said: “If we don’t have sufficient public control over the cost of the essentials, how can we have control over inflation, public spending and the rest of the economy?” Mr Burnham added that Britain “took a series of wrong turns” in the 1980s and criticised his generation of politicians for failing to challenge the neoliberalism that “led to the concentration of more wealth and power in the hands of fewer people”. The MP for Makerfield warned that Labour had one last chance to change and pledged to govern on behalf of “forgotten places everywhere” by taking power away from Westminster and Whitehall, devolving it across the ...

It was a sight to behold: Starmer being given a standing ovation by the very same people who forced him out Daily Telegraph 16/07/26   There’s a well-known (though perhaps apocryphal) quote of Winston Churchill’s about the House of Commons: “The opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you.” That certainly applies to Keir Starmer, whose time as prime minister has been cut short by his fellow Labour MPs. Understandably so, given that many realised almost as soon as their party was elected in 2024 that they were heading towards electoral oblivion under their useless leader. Not that you’d have known it from Wednesday’s PMQs – Starmer’s last before Andy Burnham replaces him . As Labour MP Carolyn Harris rose to ask the final question of the session, she had to fight back the tears. “I can do this!” she steeled herself. The House hushed as Starmer gave his final answer at the despatch box, before departing with “Goodbye”. As he walked out of the House...

When Jo Cox was murdered, a toxic political culture was blamed – but so-called progressives won’t say the same about Ann Widdecombe’s death Daily Telegraph 14/07/26 When the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in June 2016, there was no hesitation in naming her killer’s motive or beliefs. “Political violence does not exist in a vacuum,” wrote one Left-leaning commentator, “That’s not political point scoring, that is reality. To deny it – as some have done over the last 24 hours – is at best naïve, at worst lethal.” Jo’s life was tragically taken by a far-Right terrorist “after the most poisonous, hate-filled month in UK politics in living memory”. He meant the Brexit campaign which was paused out of respect. You will notice that no such ringing moral certitude has been permitted after the murder last week of Ann Widdecombe (even writing about her in the past tense still has an air of unreality; it’s just too sad, can it please not be true?). Devon and Cornwall Police told the public not to...