One4All

@patrickkmaguire Also if Burnham goes for a seat without Starmer resigning then Burnham is the agitator. If then doesn't get the seat and loses a by-election Streeting can say to the left..that was your best and he failed and lost us a seat and Mayoralty of Manc

Streeting's letter also gives him an off-ramp to endorse Burnham and depersonalises the process. Probably his best possible play at this stage.

@anandMenon1 Bloody foreigners meddling in our elections 😂😂😂😂

Jesus 🤦🏾

@Steven_Swinford So Streeting can gamble on the following. If Burnham goes for a seat 1. Burnham is the one causing the real instability, obviously going for the leadership. 2. If Burnham fails, Streeting can say...'that was your best and the public didn't back him, you need to fall behind me'

Wes Streeting's allies say he had the numbers but decided this morning not to trigger a leadership contest for two broad reasons: 1) He would have had to rely on significant numbers of ministers and aides on the payroll, meaning a wave of resignations. It would have disembowelled the government 2) He concluded that a contest would be deemed illegitimate if Andy Burnham was not able to take part. And that if he had pushed for a rapid contest and won it Burnham would have come for him later. It was a question of legitimacy 3) He realised that he had to 'put up or shut up'. Having told Starmer to his face that he had lost confidence in his leadership - much as the letter suggests - he could not continue in govt It leaves a deeply unhappy, bitterly divided Labour Party with the millstone of 94 MPs (now including Streeting) hanging around Sir Keir Starmer's neck Nothing is resolved. Starmer remains in power for now. The question now is for how long. What will Burnham do next? And perhaps more pertinently what will the Cabinet do? Proceed as if none of this has happened? We have a damaged prime minister, a deeply divided Labour Party and no resolution in sight. All with the prospect of a huge cost of living crisis coming down the tracks this Winter...

@BristOliver I totally agree, more pictures to explain stuff, country needs some educating and need to go back to basics

@paulmasonnews Why should you let one group of people who represent a minority of the population be in charge of all policy. If someone said let the bankers be in charge you'd say they were mad, as they have a vested interest..so do the unions and not always for workers

This is a +ve response: let the union movement shape both strategy and policy, putting workers at the heart of the project for 2030+. I do not want a left-right battle to reopen Labour's mission - investment led growth, strong national security and a turn to Europe are what we need now

@harryjsisson I'm not sure you are correct, is that just standard man 59 years plus using social media these days 😂

Trump had one of his worst mental health episodes yet last night, posting over 55 times in 3 hours. Here is the list: 10:15 PM - Accuses Obama of attempting a coup in 2016 10:15 PM - Says Obama worked with CIA to overthrow Trump 10:15 PM - Reposts tweet saying Obama is a “traitor” and that he should be arrested 10:22 PM - Attacks dominion voting systems for 2020 election saying they switched votes 10:22 PM - Says Fulton County, GA had their 2020 fraud exposed (there was none) 10:23 PM - Accuses Obama of personally making $120 million from Obamacare (wtf?) 10:23 PM - Cites quack lawyer Sidney Powell on the 2020 election 10:24 PM - Posts fake JFK Jr account that says Obama wiretapped Trump Tower 10:27 PM - Demands Senator Mark Kelly resign 10:29 PM - Claims neither Biden nor Harris were in charge of the Biden admin 10:29 PM - Attacks Fulton County, GA again 10:29 PM - Posts Fox News clip of Rep Ro Khanna 10:30 PM - Demands Jack Smith be arrested 10:30 PM - Accuses Obama, Clinton, and Comey of treason 10:39 PM - Reposts a tweet from a MAGA account saying they have secret intel proving Clinton and Obama committed crimes 10:39 PM - Reposts a MAGA tweet saying Hillary Clinton should be sent to Haiti 10:40 PM - Says the DOJ is “working hard” to arrest his enemies for treason 10:40 PM - Reposts a tweet attacking his own DOJ and Todd Blanche for no arrests of political enemies 10:40 PM - Posts a TikTok video of people stealing from a convenience store 10:41 PM - Posts a TikTok of someone taking a Door Dash order 10:41 PM - accuses Obama, John Brennan, and Clinton of sedition and treason again 10:42 PM - Posts a video of a man on CCTV footage knocking over food a waiter was carrying 10:47 PM - Calls Obama the “most DEMONIC FORCE” in American politics 10:47 PM - Posts a tweet from Mike Flynn saying 2020 election wasn’t fair 10:49 PM - Attacks Dominion again claiming they stole the 2020 election (it wasn’t) 10:51 PM - Reposts a fake Charlie Kirk account that claimed Obama blocked Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted 10:53 PM - Claims Obama was part of Hillary Clinton’s emails in some way 11:28 PM - Claims a senior Democrat just testified under oath that Senator Adam Schiff leaked classified information 1:13 AM - Attacks the New York Times for reporting on the reflecting pool This man is clearly not well.

@paulmasonnews @labourlewis How about doing the following for the length of the parliament abolishing stamp duty or at least dropping it to 1% across the board, capping All welfare at 0.5% below annual September inflation figure, replace triple lock with earnings lock...be bold!

@labourlewis 11/ The only options likely to avoid combined electoral and bond-market meltdown are sticking with the 2024 programme but executing it radically and finding a new narrative voice. Bring the factions into a united cabinet, let the next generation prepare their pitch for 2029...

I understand MPs' frustration with @Keir_Starmer speech, on top of election losses, but please look rationally at the risks we are running. Here's a visual guide... let me talk through it...🧵1/~

@CurtisDaly_ I'm not gonna register with HMRC so nothing to apologise for when I don't lay income tax

So has it turned out that Zack wasn't even billed for the tax? Apparently local authorities made a huge error and didn't bill a a bunch of people. So Zack literally had nothing to apologise for 💀

Having seen this show multiple times, MPs will be asking themselves “can I get a better job?” And “will the new leader swing the way my heart desires?” Labour MPs will do themselves and the country a favour if they use their heads and ask every leadership contender these questions: 1) What is your plan? Not the vibes or the direction of travel. The actual policies they will prioritise 2) How will you communicate this plan to the voters? (MPs ask yourself if the candidate is a good communicator because without that they are lost) 3) Who is your team to enact this plan both a) in the key cabinet posts and b) in Downing Street. At a bare minimum they should have identified a chief of staff and a director of communications 4) How will your plan persuade the markets not to blow up the government on the launching pad? If you don’t get proper answers to all these questions move on. Unless they have good answers to all these questions you will be installing another dud

@paulmasonnews The other side then need to make decision, row in and accept they have to support and make the case for their changes or trigger the election...now with Streeting or later with Burnham. If Burnham tries to become and MP then we all know why.

@paulmasonnews In many ways I'm glad Starmer is pushing back as the country needs stability not a lame duck PM. Those in blue Labour or the soft left should decide to give Starmer an ultimatum...you take the vast majority of the agenda we want and we will support you. No wishy washy middle1/2

As Labour MPs wake up and start posting again about why there has to be a leadership election,. here's a simplified one-slide summary of why destabilising your own government tends to drive bond yields higher. Please note.

@paulmasonnews What does Starmer actually believe in? It seems he wants to manage other people's ideas not his own? If he wants to manage he can still do that but he has to at least make one decision. Pick a lane and stay in it. Manage the consequences of being in that lane not change lanes

12/ We can pursue the 2024 program a lot more radically, and bring forward new responses to the crisis coming down the track because of Trump's reckless war. We'll earn back the votes of those who deserted us.

What Labour MPs should remember: the 2029 election is winnable, and could be a platform for a decade of progressive government, decisively locking Reform/NatCons out of power...if we think strategically... 1/ The issue is not Keir, it's our answers to long-term stagnation/decline

@benrileysmith Then Starmer must be bold and face down his back benchers on areas like Welfare, triple lock and support the changes his chosen Home Secretary as asked to do. If you really want to face down the rebellion, pick a side and say have go. It also means Streeting has to support

Some cabinet ministers are remaining loyal to Keir Starmer tonight in this moment of intense political peril. Here’s one I talked to this evening who is despairing about what their colleagues are doing, believes it is being driven by widespread loss of nerve rather than an orchestration, and fears what could come next if Labour members pick the next PM. The cab minister: “It is very difficult to see how there isn’t a contest and as soon as there is a contest you’re risking not just the Labour Party but people’s mortgages, their pensions. Everything is at stake. We’re putting that decision into a few hundred thousand activists’ hands (the Labour Party members). That is what you’re doing. If that happens we lose the right to govern for a generation.” And on the thinking of the PM (who they’ve talked to in recent days): “He is concerned for the future of the country. He is not running on ego. Honestly, if he thought him standing down would put the country on a better path he would do that, I know he would. But nobody is outlining the better path, the better outcome. Until that happens he cannot step down." In short, the message to rebels: You know not what forces will be unleashed.

@FT The problem is politicians think that Thatcher and Blair were all things to all people am that's what they try to be. NO! They had beliefs and then set out their argument and convinced people to join them towards the destination they outlined

@FT I dont agree. I think PR gives people free hits and allows them to completely go with their prejudices. First past the post makes people make compromises and will make a broader church vote for one party and accept they don't get everything they want. 1/2

Opinion: Our first-past-the-post electoral system cannot handle the new era of multi-party politics. ft.trib.al/8wkUvt6

@DAaronovitch @hoffman_noa It's true it's hidden news and interestingly enough, the Labour leadership don't seem to want shout about because it will upset their left flank! They need to pick a side or even their successes will be drowned out. Ming Vasing their achievements!

@hoffman_noa Tell me, have any of these voters noticed that net migration has fallen sharply in the last two years?

The levels of denial among some Labour MPs that they can challenge the leadership while conveniently burying that small issue of dinghy crossings & migration is honestly astounding. Having attended many, many Reform events I see the people in the audience are mostly not uni grads or woke Hackney dwellers. They are so often, from what I’ve literally seen, the “working people” Labour contenders dedicate so much time to describing a need to win back. But I seriously, seriously fail to see how the wannabe prime ministers will ever do that while effectively telling these voters they are either wrong or racist on migration. They can deny this or bury it all they want to appease members but don’t then complain when Reform benefits from it… it’s on you

@jamesjohnson252 @TheSpectator A reality is, the Tories may end up with some of the loveless votes Labour ended up in 2024. Many won't be able to stomach Farage, Greens look too left, Lib Dems are not Tory's-lite particularly on social issues. Tory's may get votes by default.

This John Curtice piece in the @TheSpectator tonight feels significant. The Tory vote actually went down in areas with like for like comparisons to last year spectator.com/article/brexit…

@adrianjclarke @danroeb Haha if you have to explain in terms of a theory around the Kennedy Assassination then it's not that clear and obvious?

This is why the decision was correct. Raya catches the ball without this clear foul. As @danroeb described on commentary, it’s the left hand pinning down Raya’s left arm that’s key. Arm round neck & shirt pulled too 😂

@s8mb @labourlewis @pangramlabs But does it matter if it's AI generated as long as it outlines your beliefs correctly and helps you articulate the point you want to make? It's too long in some ways but we keep crying out for detail and a story as to why politicians believe or want to implement a policy

@labourlewis @pangramlabs ai?

Westminster may finally be about to have the argument it has spent 40 years avoiding. If Andy Burnham returns to Parliament, the political class will know how to cover it. A leadership drama. Who is up, who is down, whether Keir Starmer can survive, whether Labour is once again turning inward. The familiar machinery of Westminster psychodrama will whirr into life. That framing misses the larger point. Burnham’s possible return matters not because of what it says about Labour’s leadership, but because of what it reveals about the British state: what it can still do, what it has forgotten how to do, and what kind of country it must become if it is serious about resilience. Britain is finally having a more serious conversation about national security. The Strategic Defence Review, the pivot back towards Europe, the recognition that hybrid warfare turns citizens, infrastructure and civic institutions into part of the front line: all of it marks a real shift in how the state thinks about its own survival. But at the centre of that conversation lies a question that the defence establishment, and most of Westminster, still does not want to answer. What kind of society do you need to be before resilience is possible? Finland is now the model everyone cites. Comprehensive security. Whole-of-society defence. Civilian preparedness woven into military planning. British strategists admire the Finnish system and ask how it might be copied. But the admiration stops short of the uncomfortable question: why does it work there? The answer is not geography or history or some mysterious quality of Finnish national character. It is structural. Nearly 80% of Finns say they would defend their country if attacked. In Britain, the figure is closer to 33%. That gap is not an accident. It exists because Finland has spent decades building a society in which people have a genuine stake in what they are being asked to defend. Energy is affordable. Housing is available. Public services function. Institutions command trust. The Nordic welfare state is not a sentimental add-on to Finnish security policy. It is the foundation of it. You cannot ask people to defend a country that does not work for them. Britain has spent 40 years building the opposite. The privatisation of essentials – energy, water, transport, housing – transferred wealth upwards from households to shareholders while making the basics of everyday life more expensive. The state, stripped of the tools to control costs at source, has been reduced to compensating after the fact. Out of every pound the Government spends on housing, 88p goes to subsidising private rents. Just 12p goes to building homes. When energy prices spiked in 2022, the Government spent £40bn in a single winter cushioning the blow, not because it had a resilient energy system but because it lacked one. Debt interest now consumes more than £100bn a year. Britain has the highest debt servicing costs in the G7: the compounding price of financing failure rather than eliminating it at source. This is what bond market dependency actually looks like. It is not an abstract fiscal condition. It is the consequence of a state that has been stripped of the supply-side tools that would let it cure the problems it now pays, indefinitely, to manage. And here is the paradox the Treasury refuses to confront. The countries that borrow most cheaply are often those that have retained the public investment model Britain abandoned. The spread between UK and Dutch borrowing costs has widened sharply not because markets fear public investment, but because they have lost confidence in a model that borrows to subsidise private failure while never addressing its causes. This is the connection Britain’s defence debate is missing. The familiar framing, that social spending is what must be sacrificed to meet the NATO target, is not merely politically toxic. It is strategically illiterate. Cutting the foundations of social cohesion to fund the hardware of national defence is self-defeating. You end up with planes and no pilots, submarines and no crew, an army that cannot recruit because the society it is meant to protect has stopped believing in itself. I think Burnham understands this. That is why his programme is more interesting than the leadership gossip suggests. What he has been building in Greater Manchester – public control of transport, expanded social housing, investment in the productive foundations of the city economy – is not a nostalgic rerun of postwar nationalisation. It is a proof of concept for a different kind of state. The Bee Network is the most visible example, but the argument behind it travels. A state that can shape markets is not condemned to subsidise their failures. A state that produces affordable energy through public generation does not need to spend tens of billions cushioning every price shock. A state with a serious public housebuilding programme does not need housing benefit to rise endlessly in line with private rents. A state that builds institutions people can see, use and trust begins to restore the civic confidence on which resilience depends. The real constraint on Britain is not money. It is capacity: the workers, institutions, supply chains and public purpose needed to turn national will into national renewal. Britain’s tragedy is not that it has run out of money. It is that after 40 years of hollowing out the state, it has made itself less able to act. Burnham’s critics will reach for the familiar warning. Borrow more, spend more, spook the gilt markets, repeat the Truss disaster. But this misunderstands both the problem and the opportunity. Bond markets do not have ideological preferences. They have functional ones. They prefer clarity, credible revenue streams, productive investment, and a state with a plan. What they punish is not public ambition but incoherence. A properly designed productive state programme would not be a leap into fiscal fantasy. It would be an attempt to end the much costlier fantasy that Britain can keep borrowing to compensate for broken markets while refusing to repair them. The defence conversation and the economic conversation need to become the same conversation. Finland did not build national resilience by choosing between welfare and security. It built resilience by understanding that they are inseparable: that a country in which the basics work, where people trust one another and the institutions around them, is one that can face danger with something more than anxiety. That is the deeper argument Burnham represents. Westminster will be tempted to treat him as a leadership story. It should resist the temptation. The question is not whether Burnham can return to parliament. It is whether Britain can return to the idea that the state should make life work. Because a country that cannot command the confidence of its people cannot truly defend itself.

@DrDanAndrews @paulmasonnews @AngelaRayner They have gone back to Ming Vase mode, they don't want to upset any group because they have been burnt by Winter Fuel and Farmers IHT...both of which have merit but were implemented the wrong way and too low a threshold. Also they seem to hate aspiration, prefer levelling down

@paulmasonnews @riz_uk @AngelaRayner The issue is precisely the lack of details in a relatively long statement. I voted Labour, but when I've asked my labour MP to discuss details I get ignored. The devil's in the details, and they don't have them.

Labour's @AngelaRayner intervention is being - classically - misreported: it's not about Burnham, it's a statement of political philosophy and it is largely correct. I don't want a change of leadership, I want Labour to wake up to the threats Angie outlines...